218 PROSERPINA. 



merely, compared to the weaving of the Heath out of 

 the cloud. And once woven, how much of it is for- 

 ever worn by the Earth ? What weight of that trans- 

 parent tissue, half crystal and half comb of honey, lies 

 strewn every year dead under the snow ? 



I must go and look, and can write no more to-day ; 

 nor to-morrow neither. I must gather slowly what I 

 see, and remember ; and meantime leaving, to be dealt 

 with afterwards, the difficult and quite separate question 

 of the production of wood, I will close this first volume 

 of Proserpina with some necessary statements respecting 

 the operations, serviceable to other creatiires than them- 

 selves, in which the lives of the noblest plants are 

 ended : honourable in this service equally, though evan- 

 escent, some, in the passing of a breeze or the dying 

 of a day ; and patient some, of storrn and time, serene 

 in fruitful sanctity, through all the uncounted ages which 

 Man has polluted with his tears. 



