I. MOSS. 21 



especially ?mdecaying among leaves ; and the lower part, 

 especially decaying. That, in fact, a plant of moss-fibre 

 is a kind of persistent state of what is, in other plants, 

 annual. Watch the year's growth of any luxuriant flower. 

 First it comes out of the ground all fresh and bright; 

 then, as the higher leaves and branches shoot up, those 

 first leaves near the ground get brown, sickly, earthy, 

 remain for ever degraded in the dust, and under the 

 dashed slime in rain, staining, and grieving, and loading 

 them with obloquy of envious earth, half-killing them, 

 only life enough left in them to hold on the stem, and to 

 be guardians of the rest of the plant from all they suffer ; 

 while, above them, the happier leaves, for whom they 

 are thus oppressed, bend freely to the sunshine, and drink 

 the rain pure. 



The moss strengthens on a diminished scale, intensifies, 

 and makes perpetual, these two states, bright leaves 

 above? that never wither, leaves beneath that exist only to 

 wither. 



15. I have hitherto spoken only of the fading moss as 

 it is needed for change into earth. But I am not sure 

 whether a yet more important office, in its days of age, be 

 not its use as a colour. 



We are all thankful enough as far as we ever are so 

 for green moss, and yellow moss. But we are never 

 enough grateful for black moss. The golden would be 

 nothing without it, nor even the grey. 



It is true that there are black lichens enough, and 



