THE MOUNTAIN FRINGE. 



cursings, and mockings, and cruel blows, is echoed from the blue 

 arch in tones of pitying tenderness. " Father, forgive them, for 

 they know not what they do." 



Nor can I doubt that there is a teaching of wisdom from 

 the Mountain Fringe, — a delicate twining vine. It is one of a 

 large class of plants, which, while they have a root of their own, 

 and draw their life from the common stock of food and force 

 stored up in earth and air, have not the ability to stand up and 

 face the winds and pelting storms alone. These weak ones must 

 twine themselves about, or lean upon, the strong. 



From time immemorial it has been thought the proper and 

 gallant thing in poetry, and in after-dinner speeches, to refer to 

 the fair sex as a vine which twines about the oak, getting sup- 

 port and lending beauty at the same time. But I learn that 

 some of the fair creatures are, in these modern times, quite dis- 

 posed to repudiate this suggestive simile and all that it implies. 

 They declare their willingness to come down to the platform of 

 "natural selection" in the struggle of life, and abide the verdict, 

 along with the sterner sex, of the inexorable law of " the sur- 

 vival of the fittest." Far be it from me to affirm that even then 

 the angelic partners of our earthly course would not carry off 

 the prizes ; for are not they the " fittest " of all sublunary things 

 to achieve, or merit, the best sweets and glories which this poor 

 world of ours can afford ? 



Still, I am inclined to believe that the discarded simile is not 

 altogether without its worth. I think, with Tennyson, that woman 

 has not quite found her natural place in the world, — 



** Till at the last she set herself to man. 

 Like perfect music unto noble words." 



