156 PROSERPINA. 



the true seeds ; and the eatable part of the fruit is formed be- 

 tween them, in clusters of delicate little flasks, as if a fairy's 

 store of scented wine had been laid up by her in the hollow 

 of a chestnut shell, between the nut and rind ; and then the 

 green changed to gold. 



14. I have said ' lastly ' of the orange, for fear of the 

 reader's weariness only ; not as having yet represented, far less 

 exhausted, the variety of frutescent form. But these are the 

 most important types of it ; and before I can explain the re- 

 lation between these, and another, too often confounded with 

 them the granular form of the seed of grasses, I must give 

 some account of what, to man, is far more important than the 

 form the gift to him in fruit-food ; and trial, in fruit-tempta- 

 tion. 



CHAPTEK XIV. 



THE FRUIT GIFT. 



1. IN the course of the preceding chapter, I hope that the 

 reader has obtained, or may by a little patience both obtain 

 and secure, the idea of a great natural Ordinance, wcich, in 

 the protection given to the part of plants necessary to prolong 

 their race, provides, for happier living creatures, food delight- 

 ful to their taste, and forms either amusing or beautiful to 

 their eyes. Whether in receptacle, calyx, or true husk, in 

 the cup of the acorn, the fringe of the filbert, the down of the 

 apricot, or bloom of the plum, the powers of Nature consult 

 quite other ends than the mere continuance of oaks and plum 

 trees on the earth ; and must be regarded always with grati- 

 tude more deep than wonder, when they are indeed seen with 

 human eyes and human intellect. 



2. But in one family of plants, the contents also of the seed, 

 not the envelope of it merely, are prepared for the support of 

 the higher animal life ; and their grain, filled with the sub- 

 stance which, for universally understood name, may best keep 

 the Latin one of Farina, becoming in French, ' Farine/ and 





