THE LEAF. 33 



many leaves that have no stems, but only roots. It is ' the 

 springing thing ' ; this thin film of life ; rising, with its edge 

 out of the ground infinitely feeble, infinitely fair. With 

 Folium, in Latin, is rightly associated the word Flos ; for the 

 flower is only a group of singularly happy leaves. From 

 these two roots come foglio, feuille, feuillage, and fleur ; 

 blume, bLossom, and bloom ; our foliage, and the borrowed 

 foil, and the connected technical groups of words in archi- 

 tecture and the sciences. 



4. This thin film, I said. That is the essential character of 

 a leaf ; to be thin, widely spread out in proportion to its 

 mass. It is the opening of the substance of the earth to the 

 air, which is the giver of life. The Greeks called it, there- 

 fore, not only the born or blooming thing, but the spread or 

 expanded thing " TreraXov." Pindar calls the beginnings of 

 quarrel, " petals of quarrel." Recollect, therefore, this form, 

 Petalos ; and connect it with Petasos, the expanded cap of 

 Mercury. For one great use of both is to give shade. The 

 root of all these words is said to be IIET (Pet), which may 

 easily be remembered in Greek, as it sometimes occurs in no 

 unpleasant sense in English. 



5. But the word ' petalos ' is connected in Greek with an- 

 other word, meaning to fly, so that you may think of a bird 

 as spreading its petals to the wind ; and with another, signi- 

 fying Fate in its pursuing flight, the overtaking thing, or 

 overflying Fate. Finally, there is another Greek word mean- 

 ing 'wide,' TrAorvs (platys) ; whence at last our 'plate' a 

 thing made broad or extended but especially made broad or 

 ' flat ' out of the solid, as in a lump of clay extended on the 

 wheel, or a lump of metal extended by the hammer. So the 

 first we call Platter ; the second Plate, when of the precious 

 metals. Then putting b for p, and d for t, we get the blade 

 of an oar, and blade of grass. 



6. Now gather a branch of laurel, and look at it carefully. 

 You may read the history of the being of half the earth in 

 one of those green oval leaves the things that the sun and 

 the rivers have made out of dry ground. Daphne daughter 

 of Enipeus, and beloved by the Sun, that fable gives you at 



VOL. I. 3 



