242 PROSERPINA. 



weight of that transparent tissue, half crystal and 

 half comb of honey, lies strewn every year dead 

 under the snow? 



I must go and look, and can write no more 

 to-day ; nor to-morrow neither. I must gather 

 slowly what I see, and remember ; and meantime 

 leaving, to be dealt with afterwards, the difficult 

 and quite separate question of the production of 

 wood, I will close this first volume of Proserpina 

 with some necessary statements respecting the 

 operations, serviceable to other creatures than 

 themselves, in which the lives of the noblest plants 

 are ended : honourable in this service equally, 

 though evanescent, some, — in the passing of a 

 breeze — or the dying of a day ; — and patient 

 some, of storm and time, serene in fruitful 

 sanctity, through all the uncounted ages which 

 Man has polluted with his tears. 



