CHAPTER IV. 



LEAVES. 



THE development of the leaves of plants, is the 

 happiest sight of spring. Flowers are rarely plentiful 

 enough to give expression to more than a very limited 

 space at once, and although many living creatures, 

 birds especially, make their renewed appearance at 

 this season, it is never with such power and with such 

 continuousness of effect. That which is true of the 

 little, is always, in that circumstance, representatively 

 true of the large, and thus, what becomes so obvious 

 after a moment's thought in respect to the spring ver- 

 dure of our own country, is true in an extended sense 

 of the whole world, at least of every part of it which 

 produces conspicuous vegetation ; it is the green 

 part of plants that gives expression to the landscape. 

 Of course there are the grand physiognomical features, 

 the mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and so forth ; but 

 the living beauty and appeal of the landscape, come of 

 the particular kind of verdure that may pertain to it ; 

 in England meadows and pastures, green all the year 

 round, in northern Europe innumerable pine and fir 

 trees, along the shores of the Mediterranean, vast 



