96 LEAF-ARRANGEMENT. 



IX. 



LEAF-ARRANGEMENT. 1 



MR. RUSKIN, in one of his most exquisite pas- 

 sages, has told us that " Flowers seem intended 

 for the solace of ordinary humanity : children 

 love them ; tender, contented, ordinary people 

 love them. They are the cottager's treasure ; 

 and, in the crowded town, mark, as with a little 

 broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the 

 workers in whose heart rests the covenant of 

 peace." I should be ungrateful, indeed, did I not 

 fully feel the force of this truth ; but it will be 

 admitted that the beauty of our woods and fields 

 is due at least as much to foliage as to flowers. 



In the words of the same author, " The leaves 

 of the herbage at our feet take all kinds of 

 strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine 

 them, star-shaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, 

 arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, 

 serrated, sinuated, in whorls, in tufts, in spires, 



1 "Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves." By Sir John Lubbock. Macmillan 

 & Co. London, 1886. p. 97. 



