THE PARABLE OF JOASH. 81 



substance in the section, for narrow and deep strength ; and 

 the shafts are mostly hollow. But when the extending space 

 of a leaf is to be enriched with fulness of folds, and become 

 beautiful in wrinkles, this may be done either by pure undu- 

 lation as of a liquid current along the leaf edge, or by sharp 

 ' drawing ' or ' gathering ' I believe ladies would call it and 

 stitching of the edges together. And this stitching together, 

 if to be clone very strongly, is done round a bit of stick, as a 

 sail is reefed round a mast ; and this bit of stick needs to be 

 compactly, not geometrically strong ; its function is essentially 

 that of starch, not to hold the leaf up off the ground against 

 gravity ; but to stick the edges out, stiffly, in a crimped frill. 

 And in beautiful work of this kind, which we are meant to 

 study, the stays of the leaf or stay-bones are finished off 

 very sharply and exquisitely at the points ; and indeed so 

 much so, that they prick our fingers when we touch them ; 

 for they are not at all meant to be touched, but admired. 



11. To be admired, with qualification, indeed, always, but 

 with extreme respect for their endurance and orderliness. 

 Among flowers that pass away, and leaves that shake as with 

 ague, or shrink like bad cloth, these, in their sturdy growth 

 and enduring life, we are bound to honour ; and, under the 

 green holly, remember how much softer friendship was failing, 

 and how much of other loving, folly. And yet you are not 

 to confuse the thistle with the cedar that is in Lebanon ; nor 

 to forget if the spinous nature of it become too cruel to 

 provoke and offend the parable of Joash to Amaziah, and its 

 fulfilment : " There passed by a wild beast that was in Leba- 

 non, and trode down the thistle." 



12. Then, lastly, if this rudeness and insensitiveness of 

 nature be gifted with no redeeming beauty ; if the boss of 

 the thistle lose its purple, and the star of the Lion's tooth, 

 its light ; and, much more, if service be perverted as beauty 

 is lost, and the honied tube, and medicinal leaf, change into 

 mere swollen emptiness, and salt brown membrane, swayed 

 in nerveless languor by the idle sea, at last the separation 

 between the two natures is as great as between the fruitful 

 earth and fruitless ocean ; and between the living hands that 



