THE SANDY SHORE.

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level, as the plain of the Hermus. For three miles it stretches away without shell or stone, a surface of white, fine-grained sand, beaten so hard by the eternal hammer of the surf, that the hoof of a horse scarce marks it, and the heaviest wheel leaves it as printless as a floor of granite. This will be easily understood when you remember the tremendous rise and fall of the ocean swell, from the very bosom of which, in all its breadth and strength, roll in the waves of the flowing tide, breaking down on the beach, every one, with the thunder of a host precipitated from the battlements of a castle. Nothing could be more solemn and anthem-like than the succession of these plunging surges. And when the tenth wave' gathers far out at sea, and rolls onward to the shore, first with a glassy and heaving swell, as if some mighty monster were lurching inland beneath the water, and then, bursting up into foam, with a front like an endless and sparry crystal wall, advances and overwhelms every thing in its progress, till it breaks with a centupled thunder on the beach,-it has seemed to me, standing there, as if this might have beaten the first surge on the shore after the fiat which 'divided sea and land.'

"So here we are on the floor of the vasty deep! What a glorious race-course! The polished and printless sand spreads away before you as far as the eye can the suri comes in below, breast-high ere it breaks; and the white fringe of the sliding wave shoots up the

e;

beach, but leaves room for the marching of a phalanx

348

A BLADE OF GRASS.

on the sands it has deserted. Mark the colour of the sand! White at high-water mark, and thence deepening to a silver gray as the water has evaporated less. Shell or rock, weed or quicksand, there is none; and mar or deface its bright surface as you will, it is ever beaten down anew, and washed even of the dust of the foot of man by the returning sea. You may write upon its fine-grained surface with a crow-quill; you may course over its dazzling expanse with a troop of chariots. Most wondrous and beautiful of all, within twenty yards of its surf, or for an hour after the tide has left the sand, it holds the water without losing its firmness, and is like a gray mirror, bright as the bosom of the sea."

GRASS.

In the foregoing sketches of the forest and the jungle vegetation has been spoken of in the gross. The student of botany, however, will discover that the minutia present as many subjects of wonder as the massed collection of trees, shrubs, and creepers. Even a blade of grass has its lessons, and no one has more felicitously read them than the accomplished John Ruskin.

"Gather," he writes, "a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow, sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting

THE MISSION OF GRASS.

349

in a point-not a perfect point either, but blunt and unfinished--by no means apparently a much-cared-for example of nature's workmanship,-made, as it seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven; and a little pale hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes or good for food,— stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine,-there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green. It seems to me not to have been without a peculiar significance that our Lord, when about to work the miracle which, of all that He showed, appears to have been felt by the multitude as the most impressive,—the miracle of the loaves, -commanded the people to sit down by companies upon the green grass.' He was about to feed them with the principal produce of the earth and the sea, the simplest representatives of the food of mankind. He gave them the seed of the herb; he bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which was as great a gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its perfect fruit for their sustenance; thus, in this single order and act, when rightly understood, indicating for evermore how the Creator had intrusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance of man to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy families of the earth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe

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350

THE SWISS LAKE SHORES.

The

merely to the meadow grass; to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft and countless and peaceful spears. fields! Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognise in those words. All spring and summer is in them-the walks by silent, scented paths-the rests in noonday heat-the joy of herds and flocks-the power of all shepherd life and meditation-the life of sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald streaks, and failing in soft blue shadows, where else it would have struck upon the dark. mould or scorching dust-pastures beside the pacing brooks-soft banks and knolls of lowly hills-thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea-crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices: all these are summed in those simple words; and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom,-paths that for ever droop and rise over the

THE USES OF GRASS.

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green banks and mounds, sweeping down in scarlet undulation steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,-look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into those long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm: He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.'

"There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of man, and its apparent humility and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only for lowest services-appointed to be trodden on and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth; glowing with variegated flame of flowers, waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colourless or leafless as they. It is always green; and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost.".