MOSS. 
235 
MOSS. 
MATERNAL LOVE. 
Jean Jaques Rousseau, so long tormented 
by his own passions, and persecuted by those 
of other persons, soothed the latter years of his 
life by the study of nature : the Mosses in par¬ 
ticular engaged his attention. It is these, he 
would frequently say, that give a look of youth 
and freshness to our fields; they embellish 
nature at the moment when the flowers have 
left us, and when their withered stems are 
mingled with the mould of our plains. In fact, 
it is in winter that the Mosses offer to the eye 
of the botanist their carpet of emerald green, 
their secret nuptials, and the charming myste¬ 
ries of the urns and amphorae which enclose 
their posterity. 
Like those friends whom neither adversity 
nor ingratitude can alienate, the Mosses, ba¬ 
nished from cultivated lands, take possession of 
waste and sterile spots, which they cover with 
their own substance, and gradually change into 
