the stillest leaves. Others there are subdued to a deeper quietness, the mute slaves of the earth, to whom we owe perhaps thanks and tenderness the most profound of all we have to render for the leaf ministries.

It is strange to think of the gradually diminished power and withdrawn freedom among the orders of leaves,- from the sweep of the chestnut and gadding of the vine, down to the close shrinking trefoil and contented daisy, pressed on earth; and at last to the leaves that are not merely close to earth, but themselves a part of it,-fastened down to it by their sides, here and there only a wrinkled edge rising from the granite crystals. We have found beauty in the tree yielding fruit, and in the herb yielding seed. How of the herb yielding no seed,* the fruitless, flowerless lichen of the rock?

Lichen, and mosses (though these last in their luxuriance are deep and rich as herbage, yet both for the most part humblest of the green things that live),- how of these? Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dintless rocks; creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honor the scarred disgrace of ruin,-laying quiet finger on the trembling stones, to teach them rest. No words, that I know of, will say what these mosses are. None are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green,the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass,—the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love token; but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his pillow.

And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time; but these do service for ever. Trees for

*The reader must remember always that my work is concerning the aspects of things only. Of course a lichen has seeds, just as other plants have; but not effectually or visibly, for man.

the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave.

Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honored of the earth-children. Unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is intrusted the weaving of the dark eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, slow-penciled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance: and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold,-far above, among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest starlike on the stone; and the gathering orange stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years.

WR

CLOUD-BALANCINGS

From Modern Painters >

E HAVE seen that when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined, in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth and the passion and perishing of mankind.

But the heavens also had to be prepared for his habitation. Between their burning light-their deep vacuity-and man, as between the earth's gloom of iron substance and man, a veil had to be spread of intermediate being; - which should appease the unendurable glory to the level of human feebleness, and sign the changeless motion of the heavens with a semblance of human vicissitude.

Between earth and man arose the leaf. Between the heaven and man came the cloud. His life being partly as the falling leaf, and partly as the flying vapor.

Has the reader any distinct idea of what clouds are? We had some talk about them long ago, and perhaps thought their nature, though at that time not clear to us, would be easily enough understandable when we put ourselves seriously to make it out. Shall we begin with one or two easiest questions?

That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley, level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation,- why is it so heavy? and why does it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away utterly into splendor of morning, when the sun has shone on it but a few moments more? Those colossal pyramids, huge and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks,- why are they so light, their bases high over our heads, high over the heads of Alps? why will these melt away, not as the sun rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight clear, while the valley vapor gains. again upon the earth like a shroud?

Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump of pines; nay, which does not steal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yet round them, and yet- and yet, slowly; now falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil; now fading, now gone: we look away for an instant, and look back, and it is again there. What has it to do with that clump of pines, that it broods by them and weaves itself among their branches, to and fro? Has it hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus ? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hill, that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,- how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow; nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it, poised as a white bird hovers over its

nest?

Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire;-how is their barbed strength bridled? what bits are these they are champing with their vaporous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam? Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. The sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of their armies? Where are set the measures of their march? Fierce murmurers, answering each other from morning until evening,- what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace? what hand has reined them back by the way by which they came?

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How is a cloud outlined? Granted whatever you choose to ask, concerning its material or its aspect, its loftiness and luminousness, how of its limitation? What hews it into a heap, or spins it into a web? Cold is usually shapeless, I suppose; extending over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. You cannot have, in the open air, angles and wedges and coils and cliffs of cold. Yet the vapor stops suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across the gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar; or braids itself in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry; or falls into ripples, like sand; or into waving shreds and tongues, as fire. On what anvils and wheels is the vapor pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the potter's clay? By what hands is the incense of the sea built up into domes of marble?

WILLIAM CLARK RUSSELL

(1844-)

ILLIAM CLARK RUSSELL, a disciple of George Cupples the un

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rivaled, is the story-teller of the sea: not so picturesque as Cooper, not so broadly humorous as Marryat, not so imaginative as Stevenson; but now that they have ceased spinning yarns, its story-teller par excellence.

The ocean is his stage, the ship his drawing-room or tennis court, the launch his bicycle; his heroes the brave sailors who stand for pluck, endurance, promptitude, courage. Through a dozen or more tales the sea lashes in a most beautiful

manner, the sails creak, the salt breeze blows. Black night, blazing noon, starlight and moonlight are shifted over it; terrible tempests come and go. The author of the 'Wreck of the Grosvenor,' most thrilling and absorbing exposé of the sailor's life of peril and privation in the service of the British ship-owner, writes stories strangely compounded of romance and reality; curiously realistic in the delineation of character, wildly improbable in plot and situation. When he sits down to spin his yarn, all things are possible to him, and to us. Early in the action we give the ship over to him, and do not attempt to account for motive or situation; but swallow the whole impossible, perfectly credible story, as we swallowed 'Red Rover' in its time.

W. CLARK RUSSELL

Perhaps, with all the freedom of the broad seas, the story is told by a young girl, who mentions in the opening chapter that this is her first voyage; or perhaps the strange methods of ocean life, the evolutions of a ship, and its seizure by convicts in a storm, are related in nautical phraseology by another young woman who now first smells salt water.

Perhaps the hero and heroine are picked up in an open boat which also holds her venerable father, presumably a thousand miles distant; - but we do not demur. The art of life, the "ernst ist das leben" kind, is a trifling matter to him and to us. His men and women, on the contrary, barring the nautical wisdom of his heroines, make no demands on credulity. They are drawn with unadorned