172 PROSERPINA. 



attached to it by the pure Aryan race, watching the strips 

 of rosy satin break from the birch stems, in the Aber- 

 feldys of Imaus. 



3. That this tree should have been the only one which 

 " the Aryans, coming as conquerors from the North, were 

 able to recognize in Ilindostan," * and should therefore 

 also be " the only one whose name is common to Sanskrit, 

 and to the languages of Europe," delighted me greatly, 

 for two reasons : the first, for its proof that in spite of 

 the development of species, the sweet gleaming of birch 

 stem has never changed its argent and sable for any 

 unchequered heraldry ; and the second, that it gave 

 proof of a much more important fact, the keenly accurate 

 observation of Aryan foresters at that early date ; for the 

 fact is that the breaking of the thin-beaten silver of the 

 birch trunk is so delicate, and its smoothness so graceful, 

 that until I painted it with care, I was not altogether 

 clear-headed myself about the way in which the chequer- 

 ing was done : nor until Fors to-day brought me to the 

 house of one of my father's friends at Carshalton, and 

 gave me three birch stems to look at just outside the 

 window, did I perceive it to be a primal question about 

 them, what it is that blanches that dainty dress of theirs, 

 or, anticipatorily, weaves. What difference is there 

 between the making of the corky excrescence of other 



* Lectures on the Families of Speech, by the Rev. F. Farrer. 

 Longman, 1870. Page 81. 



