RUSKIN'S PROSERPINA. 203 



clear green, and the good of it to you." We look for an ex- 

 position of the fact, in which the whole meaning of vegetation 

 inheres, that leaves under the sun's influence create all the 

 food of the world, and are therefore the basis of all animal 

 existence. Instead of which we have : — 



" Scientifically, you know, green in leaves is owing to ' chlo- 

 rophyll,' or, in English, to ' green leaf.' It may be very fine 

 to know that ; but my advice to you, on the whole, is to rest 

 content with the general fact that leaves are green when they 

 do not grow in or near smoky towns, and not by any means 

 to rest content with the fact that very soon there will not be 

 a green leaf in England, but only greenish-black ones. . . . 

 Well, this much the botanists really know and tell us " — 

 that vegetation " is made chiefly of the breath of animals. 

 ... So that you may look upon the grass and forests of the 

 earth as a kind of green hoar-frost, frozen upon it from our 

 breath, as, on the window panes, the white arborescence of 

 ice." 



Mr. Ruskin evidently has no idea of the essential indepen- 

 dence of the vegetable kingdom ; that, as all the carbon of the 

 breath of animals comes from plants, so they, in their decay, 

 would furnish this material for succeeding vegetation perhaps 

 as rapidly, on the whole, without the intervention of animals. 

 At most, the latter somewhat expedite the decomposition. 



" But how is it made into wood ? " As to that and matters 

 therewith connected, " under the impression that it had been 

 ascertained, and that I could at any time know all about it, 

 I have put off till to-day the knowing of anything about it at 

 all. But I will really endeavor now to ascertain something, 

 and take to my botanical books accordingly." 



Behold the result of the cram, "the gist of the matter" : — 



"Hence generally, I think we may conclude thus much, 

 that at every pore of its surface, under ground and above, the 

 plant in the spring absorbs moisture, which instantly disperses 

 itself through its whole system ' by means of some permeable 

 quality of the membranes of the cellular tissue invisible to our 

 eyes even by the most powerful glasses ' ; that in this way 

 subjected to the vital power of the tree, it becomes sap, prop- 



