THE ELM. 79 



promise, mingled with, them in countless numbers, 

 are the fruits into which the pistils have ripened. 

 Now the ruddy fur is entirely gone, and we have flat 

 green circular plates with a notch at the summit, 

 and a seed embedded in the centre, the whole seem- 

 ing an image in little of those ancient shields that 

 had a boss in the middle. Hanging upon the tree 

 they seem green hop-clusters gone astray ; when 

 they fall to the ground, they lie thick as the chaff on 

 a threshing-floor. Showiness in the detail of its 

 parts, the elm is thus not gifted with : yet the aggre- 

 gate makes amends, and is it not by the aggregate 

 of our nature that we ourselves desire to be judged ? 

 Partly, perhaps, because of this little pretension on 

 the part of the elm to floral beauty, the ancient 

 Italian gardeners selected it as a living prop for 

 their vines, giving to the tree which nature had 

 left with so little glow of ornament, the most ex- 

 quisite decoration that art could superadd. For 

 nothing can be more charming than a tree twined 

 over and festooned with the many-tendrilled vine, 

 every leaf a model of elegance, and every bunch 

 the beau-ideal of a fruit. Amid all the varied and 

 graceful uses to which the foliage of trees has been 

 applied in Art, the palm-leaf to form the capital of 

 the Egyptian pillar, ivy to help in the stone foliage 

 of the Gothic cathedral, none perhaps have been 

 more constant, as none have been more popular, than 

 the use of the vine-trail. " Vignettes " are so called 



