166 PROSERPINA. 



chesnnt trunks among the Apennines growing into caves, 

 instead of logs. Yast hollows, confused among the 

 recessed darknesses of the marble crags, surrounded by 

 mere laths of living stem, each with its coronal of glorious 

 green leaves. Why can't the tree go on, and on, hollow- 

 ing itself into a Fairy no a Dryad, Ring, till it be- 

 comes a perfect Stonehenge of a tree? Truly, " I am not 

 sent to tell thee, for I do not know." 



The worst of it is, however, that I don't know one thing 

 which I ought very thoroughly to have known at least 

 thirty years ago, namely, the true difference in the way of 

 building the trunk in outlaid and inlaid wood. I have an 

 idea that the stem of a palm-Jree is only a heap of leaf- 

 roots built up like a tower of bricks, year by year, and 

 that the palm tree really grows on the top of it, like a 

 bunch of fern ; but I've no books here, and no time to 

 read them if I had. If only I were a strong giant, instead 

 of a thin old gentleman of fifty-five, how I should like to 

 pull up one of those little palm-trees by the roots (by the 

 way, what are the roots of a palm like ? and, how does it 

 stand in sand, where it is wanted to stand, mostly ? 

 Fancy, not knowing that, at fifty-five!) that grow all 

 along the Riviera; and snap its stem in two, and cut it 

 down the middle. But I suppose there are sections 

 enough now in our grand botanical collections, and you 

 can find it all out for yourself. That you should be able 

 to ask a question clearly, is two-thirds of the way to get- 

 ting it answered ; and I think this chapter of mine will at 



