126 PROSERPINA. 



leaf — or stay-bones — are finished off very sharply 

 and exquisitely at the points ; and indeed so much 

 so, that they prick our fingers when we touch them ; 

 for they are not at all meant to be touched, but 

 admired. 



ii. To be admired, — with qualification, indeed, 

 always, but with extreme respect for their en- 

 durance and orderliness. Among flowers that pass 

 away, and leaves that shake as with ague, or 

 shrink like bad cloth, — these, in their sturdy growth 

 and enduring life, we are bound to honour ; and, 

 under the green holly, remember how much softer 

 friendship was failing, and how much of other 

 loving, folly. And yet, — you are not to confuse 

 the thistle with the cedar that is in Lebanon ; nor 

 to forget — if the spinous nature of it become too 

 cruel to provoke and offend — the parable of Joash 

 to Amaziah, and its fulfilment : " There passed by 

 a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down 

 the thistle." 



12. Then, lastly, if this rudeness and insensitive- 

 ness of nature be gifted with no redeeming beauty ; if 

 the boss of the thistle lose its purple, and the star of 

 the Lion's tooth, its light; and, much more, if service 

 be perverted as beauty is lost, and the honied tube, 

 and medicinal leaf, change into mere swollen empti- 

 ness, and salt brown membrane, swayed in nerveless 



