134 PROSERPINA. 



is all encumbered with overgrowth, and this so 

 lovely that scarce a branch could be gathered but 

 with injury ; — while underneath, the oxalis, and the 

 two smallest geraniums (Lucid um and Herb-Robert) 

 and the mossy saxifrage, and the cross-leaved bed- 

 straw, and the white pansy, wrought themselves into 

 wreaths among the fallen crags, in which every leaf 

 rejoiced, and was at rest. 



6. Now between these two states of equally natural 

 growth, the point of difference that forced itself on 

 me (and practically enough, in the work I had in 

 my own wood), was not so much the withering 

 and waste of the one, and the life of the other, 

 as the thorniness and cruelty of the one, and the 

 softness of the other. In Malham Cove, the stones 

 of the brook were softer with moss than any silken 

 pillow — the crowded oxalis leaves yielded to the 

 pressure of the hand, and were not felt — the cloven 

 leaves of the Herb-Robert and orbed clusters of its 

 companion overflowed every rent in the rude crags 

 with living balm ; there was scarcely a place left 

 by the tenderness of the happy things, where one 

 might not lay down one's forehead on their warm 

 softness, and sleep. But in the waste and distressed 

 ground, the distress had changed itself to cruelty. 

 The leaves had all perished, and the bending 

 saplings, and the wood of trust ; — but the thorns 



