[ 3 -} 



March 2, 1854. The sand foliage is vital in its 

 form, reminding me of what are called the vitals of 

 the animal body. I am not sure that its arteries are 

 ever hollow. They are rather meandering channels 

 with remarkably distinct sharp edges, formed instan- 

 taneously as by magic. How rapidly and perfectly 

 it organizes itself! . . . On the outside all the life of 

 the earth is expressed in the animal or vegetable, but 

 make a deep cut in it and you find it vital; you find 

 in the very sands an anticipation of the vegetable 

 leaf. No wonder, then, that plants grow and spring 

 in it. The atoms have already learned the law. Let 

 a vegetable sap convey it upwards and you have a 

 vegetable leaf. No wonder that the earth expresses 

 itself outwardly in leaves, which labors with the idea 

 thus inwardly. The overhanging leaf sees here its 

 prototype. 



Journal, vi, 148. 



