VH. THE PARABLE OF JOTHAM. 123 



Moniplies, and Andrew Fairservice ; and then say, if the 

 faults of all these, drawn as they are with a precision of 

 touch like a Corinthian sculptor's of the acanthus leaf, can 

 be found in anything like the same strength in other races, 

 or if so stubbornly folded and starched moni-plies of irri- 

 tating kindliness, selfish friendliness, lowly conceit, and 

 intolerable fidelity, are native to any other spot of the wild 

 eaith of the habitable globe. 



10. Will you note also for this is of extreme interest 

 that these essential faults are all mean faults ; what we 

 may call ground-growing faults ; conditions of semi-educa- 

 tion, of hardly-treated hornelife, or of coarsely-minded and 

 wandering prosperity. How literally may we go back 

 from the living soul symbolized, to the strangely accurate 

 earthly symbol, in the prickly weed. For if, with its 

 bravery of endurance, and carelessness in choice of home, 

 we find also definite faculty and habit of migration, volant 

 mechanism for choiceless journey, not divinely directed in 

 pilgrimage to known shrines ; but carried at the wind's 

 will by a Spirit w^hich listeth not it will go hard but that 

 the plant shall become, if not dreaded, at least despised ; 

 and, in its wandering and reckless splendour, disgrace the 

 garden of the sluggard, and possess the inheritance of the 

 prodigal : until even its own nature seems contrary to 

 good, and the invocation of the just man be made to it as 

 the executor of Judgment, " Let thistles grow instead of 

 wheat, and cockle instead of barley." 



11. Yet to be despised either for men or flowers may 



