Spring and Summer Vegetation 



of her fundamental plan, she seems to 

 wish to enforce a lesson of imperfection 

 and decay, to remind us that the present 

 state of things is insufficiently adapted 

 to our wants, and always transient and 

 underlaid by death. Thus flowers might 

 easily have been made to wither neatly, 

 for some, like the Gentianella, actually 

 do so, resembling unexpanded buds, or 

 they might have shrunk back into their 

 calyces almost unnoticed amid the splen- 

 dour of new-awakening blossoms. But 

 these modes are exceptions ; the contrary 

 is the rule. We were never meant to 

 overlook decay. We cannot help noticing 

 the disconsolate aspect of the fruit trees 

 whilst their bloom is perishing, or that 

 still deeper sadness which falls upon the 

 gardens when the Lilac fades, and the 

 gold of the Laburnum waxes pale, and 

 the dirty - brown look of the withering 

 Hawthorn casts a momentary blemish 

 upon every country hedgerow. A sad- 

 ness soon passing, it is true, soon lost in 

 a sense of the new beauties which are 

 everywhere developing around us, but 

 yet no less surely there. And this im- 

 perfection is no fault if we do but rightly 

 understand it. It reminds us that earth 

 is not the place in which to seek our 



