12 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



pleasures fade as a leaf, that the outsides of things are 

 stripped away, and that the mournfulness of separa- 

 tion and bereavement come round inevitably, for these 

 are the processes that place us in the presence of what 

 is permanent. As winter in the natural world is to 

 the accomplished mind no time of gloom, but a period 

 rather for realizing new delights, though possibly 

 tinged with seriousness, so winter in the life of the 

 soul, need bring no despondency or sadness, since it 

 is then that we gather our best glimpses of immortal 

 truth. 



So in winter have I often been gladdened by the 

 sight of the glorious ivy boughs, that mantling the 

 aged trunk, wreathe it with perennial and shining 

 verdure. When most other things are withheld, the 

 ivy, the holly-tree with its scarlet bracelets, the mis- 

 tletoe loaded with pearls, maintain for us the sweet 

 influence of nature, images of indestructibility ; and 

 triumphing over darkness and cold, are well used to 

 decorate our houses and churches at Christmas. There 

 is more than appears at first sight in the use of these 

 plants for Christmas ornaments. Antiquaries refer us 

 to fancies of the ancients, that the sylvan deities 

 (themselves purely fabulous beings) being frozen out, 

 or at least benumbed, in their native woods, were glad 

 to take shelter, like robins, in the vicinity and beneath 

 the roofs of human habitations, and that these cheer- 

 ful sprays of evergreens were to give them a kind of 



