92 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



from the sky, perpetuated the memory of the sparkle 

 and murmur of the vanished water. In carrying on 

 their beneficent ministry of repairing the gaunt ruins 

 and healing the severe wounds of nature, mosses 

 encounter unprotected the pitiless violence of the 

 elements, the bitter cold and the scorching heat, the 

 drenching rain and the arid drought. And like a desert 

 spring that supplies the wants of every creature that 

 comes to it, but is obliged to resort to heaven for its 

 own supply, so the moss that shelters and blesses 

 objects higher in the scale of life than itself, is depend- 

 ent for its support entirely on the influences of the sky. 

 Rooted in the clayey soil, or on the bare rock, it 

 extracts its nourishment solely from the viewless air, 

 weaving the sunbeams and the dews into tissues that 

 are hardly less delicate and exquisite in their golden 

 radiance and transparent purity. It gathers about its 

 tiny roots the grains of rock which its slow attrition 

 has worn away, and the particles of white dust which 

 the wind has whirled to its bleak home ; and over these 

 spoils from the mineral kingdom it raises its soft silken 

 cushions, and lays the green foundation upon which 

 flowers and trees may afterwards build their beautiful 

 and complicated structures. 



The lichen-crust is but an enamel on the face of the 

 stone, or a grey rosette on the aged tree; the alga is but 

 a slippery green gleet on the rocky channel of the 

 stream, or a tress of naiad hair floating on the snowy 

 current. All these plants at the bottom of the scale of 

 vegetation creep flat upon the surface of the inorganic 



