40 PROSERPINA. 



divinely simple and serene. I shall call these noble leaves 

 ' Apolline ' leaves. They characterize many orders of plants, 

 great and small, from the magnolia to the myrtle, and ex- 

 quisite ' myrtille ' of the hills, (bilberry) ; but wherever you 

 find them, strong, lustrous, dark green, simply formed, richly 

 scented or stored, you have nearly always kindly and lovely 

 vegetation, in healthy ground and air. 



21. The gradual diminution in rank beneath the Apolline 

 leaf, takes place in others by the loss of one or more of the 

 qualities above named. The Apolline leaf, I said, is strong, 

 lustrous, full in its green, rich in substance, simple in form. 

 The inferior leaves are those which have lost strength, and 

 become thin, like paper ; which have lost lustre, and become 

 dead by roughness of surface, like the nettle, (an Apolline 

 leaf may become dead by bloom, like the olive, yet not lose 

 beauty) ; which have lost colour and become feeble in green, 

 as in the poplar, or crudely bright, like rice ; which have lost 

 substance and softness, and have nothing to give in scent or 

 nourishment ; or become flinty or spiny ; finally, which have 

 lost simplicity, and become cloven or jagged. Many of these 

 losses are partly atoned for by gain of some peculiar loveliness. 

 Grass and moss, and parsley and fern, have each their own 

 delightfulness ; yet they are all of inferior power and honour, 

 compared to the Apolline leaves. 



22. You see, however, that though your laurel leaf has a 

 central stem, and traces of ribs branching from it, in a verte- 

 brated manner, they are so faint that we cannot take it for a 

 type of vertebrate structure. But the two figures of elm and 

 alisma leaf, given in Modern Painters (vol. iii.), and now here 

 repeated, Fig. 3, will clearly enough show the opposition be- 

 tween this vertebrate form, branching again usually at the 

 edges, o, and the softly opening lines diffused at the stem, and 

 gathered at the point of the leaf, 6, which, as you almost with- 

 out doubt know already, are characteristic of a vast group of 

 plants, including especially all the lilies, grasses, and palms, 

 which for the most part are the signs of local or temporary 

 moisture in hot countries ; local, as of fountains and streams ; 

 temporary, as of rain or inundation. 



