4 2 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



fields of polar and alpine snow a deep crimson hue, as 

 if a creature's blood had dyed them. In the shallow 

 parts of water melted on the surface of the glacier by 

 the hot noon-day sun may be seen jelly-like masses of 

 vegetation ; while under the stones which the rocks 

 around hurl down upon it, as if in anger at its hostility, 

 may be found lively colonies of the small black glacier 

 flea. Nature will not allow this cold, frigid substance 

 to maintain a separate existence j for besides boulders 

 from the rocks, she persists in soiling its surface with 

 dirt-bands and masses of debris from the crumbling 

 mountain-side, so that a line of demarcation between 

 ice and earth cannot be drawn, and the glacier blends 

 with the rest of the mountain ; while the sky claims 

 kindred with the deep cerulean blue that shines in the 

 crevasses. Marble, too, takes on the warm, golden tint 

 of the sunset, and is stained by time with a russet hue 

 that brings it into partnership with the common rocks, 

 with which all things make friends the mosses, lichens, 

 vines, and birds. Even the hardest crystals and preci- 

 ous stones have occasional cavities filled with fluids, 

 which indicate their origin. Nay, so anxious is nature 

 to assimilate every object, that on the thatch of man's 

 lowly cottages she plants her tufted mosses ; on the 

 slates of his statelier roofs she paints her frescoes of 

 golden lichens ; and even on his windows she produces 

 not only the iridescence of age, but also a growth of 

 curious, minute algae. On his dark unsightly cinder- 

 walks, which seem like spots of ink disfiguring nature's 

 fair page, she makes her dandelions to open their sun- 



