IX. OUTSIDE AND IN. 167 



least enable you to ask some questions about the stem, 

 though what a stem is, truly, " I am not sent to tell thee, 

 for I do not know." 



KNARESBOROUGH, 30th April, 1876. 



I see by the date of last paragraph that this chapter has 

 been in my good Aylesbury printer's type for more than a 

 year and a half. At this rate, Proserpina has a distant 

 chance of being finished in the spirit-land, with more 

 accurate information derived from the archangel Uriel 

 himself, (not that he is likely to know much about the 

 matter, if he keeps on letting himself be prevented from 

 ever seeing foliage in spring-time by the black demon- 

 winds,) about the year 2000. In the meantime, feeling 

 that perhaps I a7)i sent to tell my readers a little more 

 than is above told, I have had recourse to my botanical 

 friend, good Mr. Oliver of Kew, who has taught me, first, 

 of palms, that they actually stitch themselves into the 

 ground, with a long dipping loop, up and down, of the 

 root fibres, concerning which sempstress work I shall have 

 a month's puzzlement before I can report on it ; secondly, 

 that all the increment of tree stem is, by division and 

 multiplication of the cells of the wood, a process not in 

 the least to be described as ' sending down roots from the 

 leaf to the ground.' I suspected as much in beginning to 

 revise this chapter ; but hold to my judgment in not can- 

 celling it. For this multiplication of the cells is at least 

 compelled by an influence which passes from the leaf to 

 the ground, and vice versa ; and which is at present best 



