52 PEOSERPINA. 



of the hills, (bilberry) ; but wherever you find them, 

 strong, lustrous, dark green, simply formed, richly scented 

 or stored, you have nearly always kindly and lovely 

 vegetation, in healthy ground and air. 



21. The gradual diminution in rank beneath the Apol- 

 line leaf, takes place in others by the loss of one or more 

 of the qualities above named. The Apolline leaf, 1 said, 

 is strong, lustrous, full in its green, rich in substance, 

 simple in form. The inferior leaves are those which have 

 lost strength, and become thin, like paper ; which have 

 lost lustre, and become dead by roughness of surface, like 

 the nettle, (an Apolline leaf may become dead by bloom, 

 like the olive, yet not lose beauty) ; which have lost colour 

 and become feeble in green, as in the poplar, or crudely 

 bright, like rice ; which have lost substance and softness, 

 and have nothing to give in scent or nourishment; or 

 become flinty or spiny ; finally, which have lost simplicity, 

 and become cloven or jagged. Many of these losses are 

 partly atoned for by gain of some peculiar loveliness. 

 Grass and moss, and parsley and fern, have each their own 

 delightf ulness ; yet they are all of inferior power and 

 honour, compared to the Apolline leaves. 



22. You see, however, that though your laurel leaf has 

 a central stem, and traces of ribs branching from it, in a 

 vertebrated manner, they are so faint that we cannot take 

 it for a type of vertebrate structure. But the two figures 

 of elm and alisrna leaf, given in Modern Painters (vol. 

 iii.), and now here repeated, Fig. 3, will clearly enough 



