138 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



Vegetation, however, does not stop here on the 

 scale ; it continues to ascend, and, in doing so, is 

 satisfied with less and less soil. As the line of 

 progress arches over, Alpines appear. With them, 

 especially with the higher Alpines, there is a 

 minimum of soil and a maximum of organization. 

 With them the circle of vegetable circumstance is 

 approximately complete. For whereas the lichens, 

 because of their primitive organism, are able to live 

 on the rocks, the Alpines are doing much the same 

 because of their high and complex organism. 



The temptation is to extend the thought, and to 

 attempt a parallel between this cycle of circum- 

 stance and our own : for there is a strong sugges- 

 tion here of the presence of one simple, vast, and 

 sympathetic purpose underlying all creation a 

 suggestion that humanity is not exempt from that 

 same purpose which directs the plants. There is, 

 too, a suggestion of help 



' . . .to those agrope 

 In the mad maze of hope ' 



a suggestion of the delicate truth expressed by 

 Richard Jefferies, that 'every blade of grass, each 

 leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription 

 speaking of Hope.' Shall we attempt the parallel ? 

 Shall we say that man began his course in the 



