VI. THE PARABLE OF JOASH. \2J 



languor by the idle sea, — at last the separation 

 between the two natures is as great as between the 

 fruitful earth and fruitless ocean ; and between the 

 living hands that tend the Garden of Herbs where 

 Love is, and those unclasped, that toss with tangle 

 and with shells. 



***** 



1 3. I had a long bit in my head, that I wanted to 

 write, about St. George of the Seaweed, but I've no 

 time to do it ; and those few words of Tennyson's 

 are enough, if one thinks of them : only I see, 

 in correcting press, that I've partly misapplied the 

 idea of ' gathering ' in the leaf edge. It would be 

 more accurate to say it was gathered at the central 

 rib ; but there is nothing in needlework that will 

 represent the actual excess by lateral growth at the 

 e dge, giving three or four inches of edge for one 

 of centre. But the stiffening of the fold by the 

 thorn which holds it out is very like the action of a 

 ship's spars on its sails ; and absolutely in many cases 

 like that of the spines in a fish's fin, passing into the 

 various conditions of serpentine and dracontic crest, 

 connected with all the terrors and adversities of 

 nature ; not to be dealt with in a chapter on weeds. 



1 4. Here is a sketch of a crested leaf of less ad- 

 verse temper, which may as well be given, together 

 with Plate III., in this number, these two 



