IX. OUTSIDE AND IN. 1 79 



in seaweeds and cacti, means either that the plant 

 is to be dragged and wagged here and there at the 

 will of waves, and to have no spring nor mind of 

 its own ; or else that it has at least no springy in- 

 tention and elasticity of purpose, but only a knobby, 

 knotty, prickly, malignant stubbornness, and inco- 

 herent opiniativeness ; crawling about, and coggling, 

 and grovelling, and aggregating anyhow, like the 

 minds of so many people whom one knows ! 



8. Returning then to our grasses, in which the 

 real rooting and junction of the leaves with each 

 other is at these joints ; we find that therefore 

 every leaf of grass may be thought of as consisting 

 of two main parts, for which we shall want two 

 separate names. The lowest part, which wraps 

 itself round to become strong, we will call the 

 ' staff/ and for the free-floating outer part we will 

 take specially the name given at present carelessly 

 to a large number of the plants themselves, ' flag.' 

 This will give a more clear meaning to the words 

 ' rod ' (virga), and 'staff' (baculus), when they occur 

 together, as in the 23 rd Psalm ; and remember the 

 distinction is that a rod bends like a switch, but 

 a staff is stiff. I keep the well-known name ' blade' 

 for grass-leaves in their fresh green state. 



9. You felt, as you were bending down the 

 paper into the form d, Fig. 21, the difficulty and 



