92 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



this world without paying for it, and there is no credit 

 system in the transactions which Dame Nature arranges 

 with the children of life. 



Just as you and I had to purchase the energy 

 whereby we walked to the wood in the shape of food 

 .and drink, so every plant has to buy the power ot 

 doing its work (in the way of flowering and fruiting) 

 in the shape of its water, carbonic gas, and other items 

 of its diet. The plant is to many minds such an un- 

 obtrusive organism that what is certain to attract us 

 in the case of the animal, is apt to escape us when we 

 casually contemplate the world of trees and flowers. 



Yet that all life is work becomes clear, if we can 

 only realise the plainest of scientific truths ; and in the 

 wood to-day there is being both expended and stored 

 up an amount of energy such as becomes practically 

 unmeasurable by ordinary modes of thinking. There 

 is not a plant around us within whose microscopic 

 cells the ceaseless rush of living protoplasm currents 

 is not proceeding. Every cell is a chemical laboratory 

 in miniature, wherein wondrously complex operations 

 are being carried out. There is complete silence 

 around us, it is true. The very birds are enjoying 

 their noontide siesta, and save for the chirp of the 

 chaffinch, or the lazy croak of the crows in the rookery 

 beyond us, not a sound disturbs the calmness of the 

 day. 



Think well of it, however, and learn that if (to use 

 the expression of a master in science) our ears could 

 be strengthened in their powers of hearing as our eyes 

 can be aided by the microscope, and if we could hear 

 more acutely than we do, we should assuredly be 

 stunned by the roar of the vitality of the wood, as we 

 are deafened by the noise of the traffic in the streets 



