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Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father KnewRuskin, John

Science

Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew

Name: Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew
Author: Ruskin, John

Ruskin, John

Flowers; Plants

14. I gave this chapter its heading, because I had it in my mind to work
out the meaning of the fable in the ninth chapter of Judges, from what I
had seen on that thorny ground of mine, where the bramble was king over all
the trees of the wood. But the thoughts are gone from me now; and as I
re-read the chapter of Judges,--now, except in my memory, unread, as it
chances, for many a year,--the sadness of that story of Gideon fastens on
me, and silences me. _This_ the end of his angel visions, and dream-led
victories, the slaughter of all his {126} sons but this youngest,[34]--and
he never again heard of in Israel!

You Scottish children of the Rock, taught through all your once pastoral
and noble lives by many a sweet miracle of dew on fleece and ground,--once
servants of mighty kings, and keepers of sacred covenant; have you indeed
dealt truly with your warrior kings, and prophet saints, or are these ruins
of their homes, and shrines, dark with the fire that fell from the curse of
Jerubbael?

       *       *       *       *       *

{127}

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STEM.

1. As I read over again, with a fresh mind, the last chapter, I am struck
by the opposition of states which seem best to fit a weed for a weed's
work,--stubbornness, namely, and flaccidity. On the one hand, a sternness
and a coarseness of structure which changes its stem into a stake, and its
leaf into a spine; on the other, an utter flaccidity and ventosity of
structure, which changes its stem into a riband, and its leaf into a
bubble. And before we go farther--for we are not yet at the end of our
study of these obnoxious things--we had better complete an examination of
the parts of a plant in general, by ascertaining what a Stem proper is; and
what makes it stiffer, or hollower, than we like it;--how, to wit, the
gracious and generous strength of ash differs from the spinous obstinacy of
blackthorn,--and how the geometric and enduring hollowness of a stalk of
wheat differs from the soft fulness of that of a mushroom. To which end, I
will take up a piece of study, not of black, but white, thorn, written last
spring. {128}

2. I suppose there is no question but that all nice people like hawthorn
blossom.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father KnewRuskin, John

Science

Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew

Ruskin, John

Flowers; Plants

14. I gave this chapter its heading, because I had it in my mind to work
out the meaning of the fable in the ninth chapter of Judges, from what I
had seen on that thorny ground of mine, where the bramble was king over all
the trees of the wood. But the thoughts are gone from me now; and as I
re-read the chapter of Judges,--now, except in my memory, unread, as it
chances, for many a year,--the sadness of that story of Gideon fastens on
me, and silences me. _This_ the end of his angel visions, and dream-led
victories, the slaughter of all his {126} sons but this youngest,[34]--and
he never again heard of in Israel!

You Scottish children of the Rock, taught through all your once pastoral
and noble lives by many a sweet miracle of dew on fleece and ground,--once
servants of mighty kings, and keepers of sacred covenant; have you indeed
dealt truly with your warrior kings, and prophet saints, or are these ruins
of their homes, and shrines, dark with the fire that fell from the curse of
Jerubbael?

       *       *       *       *       *

{127}

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STEM.

1. As I read over again, with a fresh mind, the last chapter, I am struck
by the opposition of states which seem best to fit a weed for a weed's
work,--stubbornness, namely, and flaccidity. On the one hand, a sternness
and a coarseness of structure which changes its stem into a stake, and its
leaf into a spine; on the other, an utter flaccidity and ventosity of
structure, which changes its stem into a riband, and its leaf into a
bubble. And before we go farther--for we are not yet at the end of our
study of these obnoxious things--we had better complete an examination of
the parts of a plant in general, by ascertaining what a Stem proper is; and
what makes it stiffer, or hollower, than we like it;--how, to wit, the
gracious and generous strength of ash differs from the spinous obstinacy of
blackthorn,--and how the geometric and enduring hollowness of a stalk of
wheat differs from the soft fulness of that of a mushroom. To which end, I
will take up a piece of study, not of black, but white, thorn, written last
spring. {128}

2. I suppose there is no question but that all nice people like hawthorn
blossom.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew

Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew

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