90 PROSERPINA. 



keepers of sacred covenant ; have you indeed dealt truly with 

 your warrior kings, and prophet saints, or are these ruins of 

 their homes, and shrines, dark with the fire that fell from the 

 curse of Jerubbaal ? 



CHAPTEE VHI. 



THE STEM. 



1. As I read over again, with a fresh mind, the last chapter, 

 I am struck by the opposition of states which seem best to fit 

 a weed for a weed's work, stubbornness, namely, and flaccid- 

 ity. On the one hand, a sternness and a coarseness of struct- 

 ure which changes its stem into a stake, and its leaf into a spine ; 

 on the other, an utter flaccidity and ventosity of structure, 

 which changes its stem into a riband, and its leaf into a bubble. 

 And before we go farther for we are not yet at the end of 

 our study of these obnoxious things we had better complete 

 an examination of the parts of a plant in general, by ascertain- 

 ing what a Stem proper is ; and what makes it stiffer, or hollow- 

 er, than we like it ; how, to wit, the gracious and generous 

 strength of ash differs from the spinous obstinacy of black- 

 thorn, and how the geometric and enduring hollowness of 

 a stalk of wheat differs from the soft fulness of that of a mush- 

 room. To which end, I will take up a piece of study, not of 

 black, but white, thorn, written last spring. 



2. I suppose there is no question but that all nice people 

 like hawthorn blossom. 



I want, if I can, to find out to-day, 25th May, 1875, what it 

 is we like it so much for : holding these two branches of it in 

 my hand one full out, the other in youth. This full one is 

 a mere mass of symmetrically balanced snow, one was going 

 vaguely to write, in the first impulse. But it is nothing of 

 the sort. White, yes, in a high degree ; and pure, totally ; 

 but not at all dazzling in the white, nor pure in an insultingly 

 rivalless manner, as snow would be ; yet pure somehow, cer- 

 tainly ; and white, absolutely, in spite of what might be thought 

 failure, imperfection nay, even distress and loss in it. For 



