152 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



moreover to those who are able to perceive 

 typical resemblances, not a few emblematic les- 

 sons regarding virtues of great store in the busi- 

 ness of human life. Some of them dwell in 

 solitary spots' rarely seen or visited, wasting what- 

 ever sweetness they possess, not indeed upon the 

 desert air, but upon the wild sea breezes ; and so 

 afford emblems of modest and retiring virtue 

 which courts no approval from without, and is 

 amply contented with its own rewards. Others 

 there are that select their abode in places so arid 

 as hardly to afford them any kind of nutriment, 

 nay, scarcely any footing by which to resist being 

 torn up by the fierce winds, and yet in places so 

 unpromising and unproductive, thriving and 

 flourishing, and opening their blossoms gratefully 

 to the summer sun, and so exhibiting types of 

 humble and contented poverty, and thus having 

 more beauty than many a plant nurtured by a 

 sedulous gardener in the warmth and luxury of a 

 hothouse : others again there are which seem to 

 derive no nourishment whatever from the dry 

 sands or the hard rocks on which they grow, 

 whose roots seem to serve no other purpose than 

 to fix them to one place, and whose thick, suc- 

 culent leaves derive the moisture tha,t fills them 

 from the air, and so afford emblems of those who 

 by ingenuity, industry and toil know how to 

 make the most of untoward conditions, and how 

 to prosper where others less energetic must perish. 

 Then, once more, these various plants are hardy 

 in the extreme ; the cutting east winds injure 



