A GOOD WORD FOR THE NETTLE 125 



arranged foliage, whose greenness is refreshing to 

 the eye ; the whole scene is not incapable of producing 

 a train of thought equally refreshing to the mind. 

 So at least Wordsworth often found it : 



I well remember that those very plumes, 



Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall, 

 70 By mist and silent rain-drops silvered o'er, 



As here I passed, into my heart conveyed 



So still an image of tranquillity, 



So calm and still, and looked so beautiful 



Amid the uneasy thoughts that filled my mind, 



That what we feel of sorrow and despair 



From ruin and from change, and all the grief 



That passing shows of being leave behind, 



Appeared an idle dream. . . ,.. 

 , I turned away, 

 so And walked along my road in happiness. 



To Keats, crossing a heath in Scotland, the plant 

 suggested the elusive vision of an ancient Druid in 

 flowing robes ' that rustled by and swept the nettled 

 green '. To the figure-designer of textile fabrics the 

 nettle-leaf and the nettle -branch offer valuable sug- 

 gestions of a more practical kind ; and the painter 

 can scarcely better instil into his picture of a decayed 

 castle or a deserted cottage the note of desolation, than 

 by introducing a host of invading nettles in the court- 

 90 yard, or by representing a single plant spying round 

 the corner of a gable. The great or common nettle and 

 the nipping Roman nettle may both be found at those 

 points along Hadrian's double wall where, seventeen 

 centuries ago, stood Roman castra or castellum. 



The industrial uses of the nettle have hitherto been its indus- 

 sporadic. One or other of them, however, may yet tria ^ uses - 

 come to be general and permanent. Its use as an 



