Sibylline Leaves

“ To us there remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, the cautious unhazardous labours of the industrious though contented gardener—to prune, to strengthen, to engraft, and one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar. ”

“ The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells;
And suddenly, as one that toys with time,
Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm
Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes! ”

“ Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone. ”

“ As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth Surface of the Fount.
Here Twilight is and Coolness: here is Moss,
A soft Seat, and a deep and ample Shade.
Thou may'st toil far and find no second Tree. ”

“ Rhythm in all Thought, and Joyance every where—
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd,
Where the breeze warbles and the mute still Air
Is Music slumbering on its instrument! ”

“ From Distemper's midnight anguish;
And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines Manhood's maze;
Or where o'er cradled infants bending
Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze. ”

“ And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep;
The world is all one's own. ”

“ And singing, and loving—all come back together.
But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he—
"I love my Love, and my Love loves me!" ”

“ Whose pines, scarce travell'd by the breeze above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge!
Yes, while I stood and gaz'd, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty I my spirit felt thee there. ”

“ Like the milky way shall shine
Bright in fame!
Though ages long have past
Since our Fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,
O'er untravell'd seas to roam,
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins! ”

“ Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind,
If Lewti never will be kind.
The little cloud—it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey—
Away it passes from the Moon! ”

“ Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in Nature,
All lovely and all honorable things,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrow'd from my country. ”

“ My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life
Still most a Stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend!
Thee, who did'st watch my boy-hood and my youth;
Did'st trace my wanderings with a Father's eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good
Rebuk'd each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow'd in Silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have lov'd thee ever,
Lov'd as a brother, as a Son rever'd thee! ”

“ And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark,
That singest like an angel in the clouds!
My God! it is a melancholy thing
For such a man, who would full fain preserve
His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel
For all his human brethren—O my God! ”

“ With many a bright obstrusive form of art,
Detain'd your eye from nature: stately vests,
That veiling strove to deck your charms divine,
Rich viands, and the pleasurable wine,
Were your's unearn'd by toil; nor could you see
The unenjoying toiler's misery. ”

“ Tearful raptures, boyish mirth;
Silent adorations, making
A blessed shadow of this Earth!
O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if Life be Love. ”

“ Sibyl was known, and universally admired and flattered by many of the people staying there,——and, as she moved about among her acquaintances, chatting first with one group and then with another, I sat in moody silence, watching her with increasing wonderment and horror. Her beauty seemed to me like the beauty of the poison-flower, which, brilliant in colour and perfect in shape, exhales death to those who pluck it from its stem. ”

“ The plants belonging to this order have so strong a family likeness to each other as to be easily recognised; and they are all distinguished botanically by the swollen joints of their stems, and their opposite undivided leaves, which are generally connate, that is united, and sheathing the stem. The order is divided into two sections, viz.: Sileneæ, in which the sepals are united into a tube, and which section includes the genera Silene, Dianthus, Saponaria, Lychnis, and Agrostemma ”

“ There can be no doubt that Sigillaria usually produced its cones on slender pedicels which bore a few leaves or bracts in irregular verticils, or in short vertical series on comparatively stout stems, an arrangement reminding us of the occurrence of flowers on old stems of Theobroma and other recent Dicotyledons. ”

“ Apart from the beauty of the flower, its grey-green, almost iridescent foliage is like no other leaf that grows, and when the two are combined the result is High art, art at its best point. Such praise is, however, merely impertinent. It is more pertinent to say that the whole genus, but especially Sieboldi, belong to that very limited category of plants that are at once fit for the most orthodox of beds or borders, while at the same time they are free enough, and independent-looking enough, not to seem ridiculous in a bit of pure “wildness” such as this little pond-side purports to be. ”

“ It is an endogenous plant, included in the order Juncaginaceæ, to which the arrow-grasses and the rushes belong; it is found not only in the eastern region, but occurs in streams near the upper belt of forest in the interior. It is said to be very tenacious of life, retaining its vitality even if the stream where it grows is dried up; the leaves in their various stages of growth pass through a gradation of colour, from a pale yellow to a dark olive-green. When full grown, its dark green leaves form the limit of a circle two or three feet in diameter. ”

“ Every one must have noticed how brittle a dead leaf is. This brittleness is due to the silicon which is deposited in the epidermis of the leaf. When the leaf is green the silicon is not so obvious; it is nevertheless there. Some leaves take up more silicon than others; grasses, for example, contain so much that many will cut one’s hand if roughly plucked. I imagine that the tailor-bird usually selects for her nest a leaf or leaves in which there is plenty of silicon. ”

“ While they speak, the already clouded sky darkens so rapidly that all start and look out across the populated hills. A distant peal of thunder is heard, followed by a second, greater in volume. All press together, then a cry arises: "Way, make way! The sibyl of the vale would speak! She is inspired!" The dense crowd parts and all swing backward in confusion. A flash of lightning breaks the heavy gloom, followed by a muttering of thunder. A few large raindrops fall. The sibyl enters through the multitude, a weird, mad form, with tossing hair and wild, disheveled garments. ”

“ The Sigillariæ were, on the contrary, great trees, consisting of a simple trunk, surmounted with a bunch or panicle of slender drooping leaves, with the bark often channelled, and displaying impressions or scars of the old leaves, which, from their resemblance to a seal, sigillum, gave origin to their name. ”

“ High over all the other trees shot up the tall trunks of many varieties of palms, with their graceful crowns of feathery leaves. A dense undergrowth of shrubs, tree-ferns, and dwarf palms made in many places quite a green twilight; while overhead the branches were interlaced and bound together by countless creeping and climbing plants, whose rope-like tendrils crossed in all directions and made a labyrinth which it was impossible to pass through. Occasionally we came across large trees in flower, giving a glorious mass of colour. With these exceptions, however, flowers were comparatively few ”

“ For all I knew it could have opened on the Pit itself: but a shaft of light guided me stumbling into a stone-flagged kitchen, low and dim and smoky in fact as some lesser inferno.
By the hearth a woman turned from tending the kettle to overlook us steadily. She was alone, but my faith! she had no need to fear. Figure to yourself this massive sibyl with a face planned on a mason's square, deep-chiselled and brooding in the flush of firelight. She was like that. Yes, a sibyl in her cave, to whom Bibi-Ri entered gingerly as a cat.
"I am here, Mother Carron," he said. ”

“ When I crawl out on Sibyl Grey, I am the very image of Death on the pale horse—lanthorn-jawed, decayed in flesh, stooping as if I meant to eat the pony's ears, and unable to go above a footpace. But although I have had, and must expect, frequent relapses, yet the attacks are more slight, and I trust I shall mend with the good weather. Spring sets in very pleasantly, and in a settled fashion. I have planted a number of shrubs, etc., at Huntly Burn, and am snodding up the drive of the old farmhouse, enclosing the Toftfield, and making a good road from the parish road to your gate. ”

“ The Sibyls are of different ages, but all listen to angels who are whispering to them the words which they are to write. The composition is full of life, beauty, and nobility. These Sibyls remind me of a Sibylla which you ought to see, if you come to Rome. It is by Guercino and is in the museum of the Capitol, a figure of more solemn earnestness than those of Raphael, but with as profound a gaze, as nobly beautiful, as truly turned away from the world and fixed alone upon the eternal truth. ”

“ And I remembered every day the way the woods smelled, and when it came bonfire time I wonder I didn't go crazy. And at last, this morning, when I found the mallowberries ripe, I took some cakes and went through the orchard. I want to be lost. It is never a real holiday until you're lost. Do you travel far?"
"We don't know," answered Lady Sibyl truthfully. "Some distance, probably. The truth is," she added mischievously, "we're looking for a dream—the sort of dream we used to have."
Lady Sibyl glanced merrily at Tibby. ”

“ In external form as in internal structure it is often impossible to distinguish between the leaves of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. The distinguishing features enumerated by the late M. Renault cannot be employed, with any great degree of confidence, as diagnostic characters. In transverse section the lamina of a Lepidodendron leaf presents the same appearance as that of the Sigillarian leaves represented in fig. 142. Near the base the free part of the leaf is usually sub-rhomboidal in section with short lateral wings, a ventral keel and two stomatal grooves (fig. 142, A, B, g) . ”

“ The internal structure bears most analogy to that of the Cycadeæ, and the foliage consisted of long linear carinated leaves. The Sigillariæ, therefore, differ essentially from the arborescent cryptogamia, which they somewhat approach in having scalariform vascular tissue, symmetrical and regular leaf-scars, and branchless trunks. More than fifty species have been determined. ”

“ She left them waving farewells.
"Oh," she thought, "the world is all alike. Mad or sane, office-boy or Saint Syrol's prophet, or Englishwoman at large in America—we are all looking for dreams to come true, and longing to run away to find them. Perhaps that is why they don't come to us."
The shadows were lengthening and growing indistinct, and the sun hung low and red above the poplars at the edge of the far field. For the first time, as she looked, Lady Sibyl felt alarm, for the lowering sun takes confidence with him, a hostage. Then the spirit of the day danced back to her face. ”

“ There was no appearance of vegetation until the last of March, when were observed several cylindrical leaves, some of them evidently arose from bulbs which had formed the last summer, on account of the dryness of its situation, which frequently occurs when plants are removed from a moist to a dry situation. ”

“ It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox; but doubtless the more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot aspects; not only for the reason assigned above, but also because, thus circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the spring, and grow on later in the autumn than they would otherwise do, and so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate: because, on the very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off by the severe nights of March or April. ”

“ The Sileneæ are as a rule adapted for pollination by insects with long probosces—especially butterflies,—and they are frequently protandrous, so that at first the calyx-stamens open, later on the corolla-stamens, then the stigmas expand. The honey is secreted by a ring-like nectary round the base of the ovary or by nectaries at the base of the stamens. Some only blossom and emit scent at night or in the evening (Lychnis vespertina, Silene nutans, Saponaria officinalis) and, like other night-flowers, are of a white or pale colour. ”