Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with 

 hushed softness the dintlcss rocks; creatures full of pity, cover- 

 ing with strange and tender honor the scarred disgrace of ruin, 

 — laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach them 

 rest. ... No words that I know of will say what these mosses 

 are. None are dehcate enough, none perfect enough, none rich 

 enough. How is one to tell of rounded bosses of furred and beam- 

 ing green, — the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine filmed 

 as if the Rock Spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass, — the 

 tracery of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, ar- 

 borescent, burnished through every fiber into fitful brightness 

 and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pen- 

 sive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They 

 will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token, 

 but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied 

 child his pillow. 



John Ruskin, Modern Painters, 



