III. THE LEAF. 43 



J9, and d for , we get the blade of an oar, and blade of 

 grass. 



6. Now gather a branch of laurel, and look at it care- 

 fully. You may read the history of the being of half the 

 earth in one of those green oval leaves the things that 

 the sun and the rivers have made out of dry ground. 

 Daphne daughter of Enipeus, and beloved by the Sun, 

 that fable gives you at once the two great facts about 

 vegetation. Where warmth is, and moisture there, also, 

 the leaf. Where no warmth there is no leaf; where 

 there is no dew no leaf. 



7. Look, then, to the branch you hold in your hand. 

 That you can so hold it, or make a crown of it, if you 

 choose, is the first thing I want you to note of it ; the 

 proportion of size, namely, between the leaf and yoii. 

 Great part of your life and character, as a human creature, 

 has depended on that. Suppose all leaves had been spa- 

 cious, like some palm leaves ; solid, like cactus stem ; or 

 that trees had grown, as they might of course just as eas- 

 ily have grown, like mushrooms, all one great cluster of 

 leaf round one stalk. I do not say that they are divided 

 into small leaves only for your delight, or your service, as 

 if you were the monarch of everything even in this atom 

 of a globe. You are made of your proper size ; and the 

 leaves of theirs : for reasons, and by laws, of which neither 

 the leaves nor you know anything. Only note the har- 

 mony between both, and the joy we may have in this di- 

 vision and mystery of the frivolous and tremulous petals, 



