150 PEOSEBPINA. 



and are as much at ease with the Latin or French sylla 

 bles of a word as with the English ones; this familiarity 

 being above all things needful to cure our young students 

 of their present ludicrous impression that what is simple, 

 in English, is knowing, in Greek ; and that terms con- 

 structed out of a dead language will explain difficulties 

 which remained insoluble in a living one. But Greek is 

 not yet dead: while if we carry our unscholarly nomen- 

 clature much further, English soon will be ; and then 

 doubtless botanical gentlemen at Athens will for some 

 time think it fine to describe what we used to call caryo- 

 phyllacese, as the eSX?7</>Se9. 



30. For indeed we are all of us yet but school-boys, 

 clumsily using alike our lips and brains; and with all our 

 mastery of instruments and patience of attention, but few 

 have reached, and those dimly, the first level of science, 

 wonder. 



For the first instinct of the stem, unnamed by us yet 

 unthought of, the instinct of seeking light, as of the 

 root to seek darkness, what words can enough speak the 

 wonder of it. 



Look. Here is the little thing, Line-study V. (A), in 

 its first birth to us: the stem of stems; the one of which 

 we pray that it may bear our daily bread. The seed has 

 fallen in the ground with the springing germ of it down 

 wards ; with heavenly cunning the taught stem curls 

 round, and seeks the never-seen light. Veritable 'con- 

 version,' miraculous, called of God. And here is the oat 



