46 PROSERPINA. 



Vulgate — "folium ejus non defluet" — shall not fall 

 away, — that is to say, shall not fall so as to leave 

 any visible bareness in winter time, but only that 

 others may come up in its place, and the tree be 

 always green. 



2. Now, you know, the fruit of the tree is either 

 for the continuance of its race, or for the good, or 

 harm, of other creatures. In no case is it a good 

 to the tree itself. It is not indeed, properly, a 

 part of the tree at all, any more than the egg 

 is part of the bird, or the young of any creature 

 part of the creature itself. But in the leaf is the 

 strength of the tree itself. Nay, rightly speaking, 

 the leaves are the tree itself. Its trunk sustains ; 

 its fruit burdens and exhausts ; but in the leaf it 

 breathes and lives. And thus also, in the eastern 

 symbolism, the fruit is the labour of men for others ; 

 but the leaf is their own life. " He shall bring forth 

 fruit, in his time ; and his own joy and strength 

 shall be continual." 



3. Notice next the word 'folium.' In Greek, 

 cpuMov, ' phyllon.' 



"The thing that is born," or "put forth." 

 "When the branch is tender, and putteth forth 

 her leaves, ye know that summer is nigh." The 

 botanists say, "The leaf is an expansion of the 

 bark of the stem." More accurately, the bark is 



