VI. THE PARABLE OF JO ASH. Ill 



darkness of this last spring to make it brighter in resist- 

 ance ; but I never saw any spaces of full warm yellow, in 

 natural colour, so intense as the meadows between Read- 

 ing and the Thames ; nor did I know perfectly what 

 purple and gold meant, till I saw a field of park land 

 embroidered a foot deep with king-cup and clover while 

 I was correcting my last notes on the spring colours of 

 the Royal Academy at Aylesbury. 



9. And there are two other questions of extreme sub- 

 tlety connected with this main one. What shall we say 

 of the plants whose entire destiny is parasitic which are 

 not only sometimes, and impertinently, but always, and 

 pertinently, out of place ; not only out of the right place, 

 but out of any place of their own? When is mistletoe, 

 for instance, in the right place, young ladies, think you? 

 On an apple tree, or on a ceiling? When is ivy in the 

 right place? when wallflower ? The ivy has been torn 

 down from the towers of Kenil worth ; the weeds from 

 the arches of the Coliseum, and from the steps of the 

 Araceli, irreverently, vilely, and in vain; but how are we 

 to separate the creatures whose office it is to abate the 

 grief of ruin by their gentleness, 



" wafting wallflower scents 

 From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride, 

 And chambers of transgression, now forlorn," 



from those which truly resist the toil of men, and conspire 

 against their fame ; which are cunning to consume, and 



