120 PROSERPINA. 



clods and clots, knitted together by mossy sponge. It 

 was all Nature's free doing ! she had had her way with 

 it to the uttermost ; and clearly needed human help 

 and interference in her business ; and yet there was not 

 one plant in the whole ruinous and deathful riot of the 

 place, whose nature was not in itself wholesome and love- 

 ly ; but all lost for want of discipline. 



5. The other piece of wild growth was among the fallen 

 blocks of limestone under Malham Cove. Sheltered by 

 the cliff above from stress of wind, the ash and hazel 

 wood spring there in a fair and perfect freedom, without 

 a diseased bough, or an unwholesome shade. I do not 

 know why mine is all encumbered with overgrowth, and 

 this so lovely that scarce a branch could be gathered but 

 with injury ; while underneath, the oxalis, and the two 

 smallest geraniums (Lucidum and Herb-Robert) and the 

 mossy saxifrage, and the cross-leaved bed-straw, and the 

 white pansy, wrought themselves into wreaths among the 

 fallen crags, in which every leaf rejoiced, and was at rest.. 



6. Now between these two states of equally natural 

 growth, the point of difference that forced itself on me 

 (and practically enough, in the work I had in my own 

 wood), was not so much the withering and waste of the 

 one, and the life of the other, as the thorniness and cruelty 

 of the one, and the softness of the other. In Malham 

 Cove, the stones of the brook were softer with moss than 

 any silken pillow the* crowded oxalis leaves yielded to 

 the pressure of the hand, and were not felt the cloven 



