IX. OUTSIDE AND IN. 185 



growing into caves, instead of logs. Vast hollows, 

 confused among the recessed darknesses of the marble 

 crags, surrounded by mere laths of living stem, each 

 with its coronal of glorious green leaves. Why 

 can't the tree go on, and on, — hollowing itself into a 

 Fairy — no — a Dryad, Ring, — till it becomes a perfect 

 Stonehenge of a tree ? Truly, " I am not sent to 

 tell thee, for I do not know." 



The worst of it is, however, that I don't know 

 one thing which I ought very thoroughly to have 

 known at least thirty years ago, namely, the true 

 difference in the way of building the trunk in out- 

 laid and inlaid wood. I have an idea that the 

 stem of a palm-tree is only a heap of leaf-roots 

 built up like a tower of bricks, year by year, and 

 that the palm-tree really grows on the top of it, 

 like a bunch of fern ; but I've no books here, and 

 no time to read them if I had. If only I were 

 a strong giant, instead of a thin old gentleman 

 of fifty-five, how I should like to pull up one of 

 those little palm-trees by the roots — (by the way, 

 ■what are the roots of a palm like ? and, how does 

 it stand in sand, where it is wanted to stand, 

 mostly ? Fancy, not knowing that, at fifty-five !) 

 — that grow all along the Riviera ; and snap its 

 stem in two, and cut it down the middle. But 

 I suppose there are sections enough now in our 



