THE MISTLETOE BOUGH. 115 



things else are quiescent and still, and give no sign of 

 life at all. 



Away back in the history of the Gauls, we know 

 how the mistletoe played its part in the mystic rites of 

 that race. On the sixth day after the first new moon 

 of the year, we can see, in our mind's eye, the two 

 white oxen placed for the first time under the yoke, 

 and the High Druid, in his white garments, golden 

 sickle in hand. We can see him cut the mistletoe 

 from the oak, and behold the plant reverently received 

 in a white cloth as it falls. Then comes the sacrifice 

 of the oxen, and the distribution of the sacred leaves 

 to the people. All these things, ideas, and ceremonies 

 have long passed away, and have become merged in 

 that " illimitable azure of the past " which receives so 

 many of the hopes and fears of the human race ; but 

 mistletoe remains with us a symbol of the reviving 

 year about to dawn, and a promise of the new life 

 which the advent of the spring will proclaim. 



That something of the lower nature often com- 

 mingles with higher things is, unfortunately, a fact of 

 life that needs no new illustration. Mistletoe is a 

 " parasite " on apple and oak, and parasites belong to 

 the groundlings among life's children. There is no 

 nobility in the character of animal or plant which 

 attaches itself to another living being, either as a 

 lodger or a boarder, or in the double capacity of an 

 unbidden guest. Plant-morals, like animal-morals, are 

 often of the grossly utilitarian type. If a living being 

 is cunning enough to take life easy by absorbing the 

 food which another child of life prepares for its own 

 use, the parasite doubtless benefits by its assumption 

 of the role of unwelcome guest. 



But " the whirligig of time brings in its revenges." 



