62 PROSERPINA. 



than may be caused by the leaf's expanding in 

 every permitted direction, as the water would, with 

 all the speed it can ; but the resemblance is so 

 close as to enable you to fasten the relation of the 

 unbranched leaves to streams more distinctly in 

 your mind, — just as the toss of the palm leaves 

 from their stem may, I think, in their likeness to 

 the springing of a fountain, remind you of their 

 relation to the desert, and their necessity, therein, 

 to life of man and beast. 



24. And thus, associating these grass and lily 

 leaves always with fountains, or with dew, I think 

 we may get a pretty general name for them also. 

 You know that Cora, our Madonna of the flowers, 

 was lost in Sicilian Fields : you know, also, that 

 the fairest of Greek fountains, lost in Greece, was 

 thought to rise in a Sicilian islet ; and that the real 

 springing of the noble fountain in that rock was 

 one of the causes which determined the position of 

 the greatest Greek city of Sicily. So I think, as 

 we call the fairest branched leaves ' Apolline,' we 

 will call the fairest flowing ones ' Arethusan.' But 

 remember that the Apolline leaf represents only the 

 central type of land leaves, and is, within certain 

 limits, of a fixed form ; while the beautiful Arethusan 

 leaves, alike in flowing of their lines, change their 

 forms indefinitely, — some shaped like round pools, 



