68 PROSERPINA. 



will read now, patiently ; for I know you will tell me much 

 that is worth hearing, though not perhaps what I want. 



Yes ; now that I have read Lindley's statement carefully, I 

 find it is full of precious things ; and this is what, with think- 

 ing over it, I can gather for you. 



17. First, towards the end of January, as the light en-, 

 larges, and the trees revive from their rest, there is a gen- 

 eral liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius in their stems ; 

 and I suppose there is really a great deal of moisture rapidly 

 absorbed from the earth in most cases ; and that this absorp- 

 tion is a great help to the sun in drying the winter's damp out 

 of it for us : then, with that strange vital power, which sci- 

 entific people are usually as afraid of naming as common peo- 

 ple are afraid of naming Death, the tree gives the gathered 

 earth and water a changed existence ; and to this new-born 

 liquid an upward motion from the earth, as our blood has 

 from the heart ; for the life of the tree is out of the earth ; 

 and this upward motion has a mechanical power in pushing 

 on the growth. " Forced onward by the current of sap, 

 the plumule ascends," (Lindley, p. 132,) this blood of the tree 

 having to supply, exactly as our own blood has, not only the 

 forming powers of substance, but a continual evaporation, 

 " approximately seventeen times more than that of the human 

 body," while the force of motion in the sap " is sometimes 

 five times greater than that which impels the blood in the 

 crural artery of the horse." 



18. Hence generally, I think we may conclude thus much, 

 that at every pore of its surface, under ground and above, 

 the plant in the spring absorbs moisture, which instantly dis- 

 perses itself through its whole system " by means of some 

 permeable quality of the membranes of the cellular tissue in- 

 visible to our eyes even by the most powerful glasses " (p. 

 326) ; that in this way subjected to the vital power of the tree, 

 it becomes sap, properly so called, which passes downwards 

 through this cellular tissue, slowly and secretly ; and then up- 

 wards, through the great vessels of the tree, violently, stretch- 

 ing out the supple twigs of it as you see a flaccid waterpipe 

 swell and move when the cock is turned to fill it. And the 



