74 PROSERPINA. 



is worth Heaven's while. The glory of it is in 

 being, — not in begetting ; and in the spirit and 

 substance, — not the change. For the earth also 

 has its flesh and spirit. Every day of spring is the 

 earth's Whit Sunday — Fire Sunday. The falling 

 fire of the rainbow, with the order of its zones, 

 and the gladness of its covenant, — you may eat of 

 it, like Esdras ; but you feed upon it only that 

 you may see it. Do you think that flowers were 

 born to nourish the blind ? 



Fasten well in your mind, then, the conception 

 of order, and purity, as the essence of the flower's 

 being, no less than of the crystal's. A ruby is 

 not made bright to scatter round it child-rubies ; 

 nor a flower, but in collateral and added honour, 

 to give birth to other flowers. 



Two main facts, then, you have to study in 

 every flower : the symmetry or order of it, and 

 the perfection of its substance ; first, the manner 

 in which the leaves are placed for beauty of form ; 

 then the spinning and weaving and blanching of 

 their tissue, for the reception of purest colour, or 

 refining to richest surface. 



4. First, the order : the proportion, and answering 

 to each other, of the parts ; for the study of which 

 it becomes necessary to know what its parts are; 

 and that a flower consists essentially of Well, 



