FRUITS AND AUTUMNAL DAYS. 77 



ous, and comprise forms and flowers to which cold 

 countries give no parallel. Such are the fruits of the 

 thousand kinds of palm-tree, the custard-apple, the 

 bread-fruit, and the guava. Now and then these il- 

 lustrious exotics condescend to ripen their produce in 

 our hothouses, but it seldom acquires the flavor that 

 pertains to it in its native country. The skill of the 

 gardener can supply warmth, but it cannot bestow 

 light. " Let there be light," is the beginning every- 

 where, both in the moral world and in the natural. 

 Wanting the clear, shining, and intense brightness of 

 the tropics, the mere enjoyment of artificial heat will 

 not sufiice. Nor, for the matter of that, would light 

 suflSce to ripen them without a due proportion of 

 warmth. The old story meets us everywhere. The 

 head " and the heart, the intellect and the affections, 

 knowledge and good dispositions, — what are they, 

 deprived of their correlatives ? Inside the fruit is the 

 seed. This is the last, grand, and crowning effort of 

 the plant's existence ; for in the seed lies wrapped 

 the future one. Perhaps a mere speck, yet capable of 

 unfolding by degrees, and absorbing from the earth 

 and atmosphere that marvellous sustenance which, 

 invisible to our eyes, shall yet be wrought into wood 

 and sap, and built into great boughs and branches, 

 till a living pillar is erected that shall withstand the 

 shocks of ages. 



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