tudy 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.

I want, if I can, to find out to-day, 25th May, 1875, what it is we like it
so much for: holding these two branches of it in my hand--one full out, the
other in youth. This full one is a mere mass of symmetrically
balanced--snow, one was going vaguely to write, in the first impulse. But
it is nothing of the sort. White,--yes, in a high degree; and pure,
totally; but not at all dazzling in the white, nor pure in an insultingly
rivalless manner, as snow would be; yet pure somehow, certainly; and white,
absolutely, in spite of what might be thought failure,--imperfection--nay,
even distress and loss in it. For every little rose of it has a green
darkness in the centre--not even a pretty green, but a faded, yellowish,
glutinous, unaccomplished green; and round that, all over the surface of
the blossom, whose shell-like petals are themselves deep sunk, with grey
shadows in the hollows of them--all above this already subdued brightness,
are strewn the dark points of the dead stamens--manifest more and more, the
longer one looks, as a kind of grey sand, sprinkled without sparing over
what looked at first unspotted light. And in all the ways of it the lovely
thing is more like the spring frock of some prudent little maid of
fourteen, than a flower;--frock with some little spotty pattern on it to
keep it from showing an unintended and inadvertent spot,--if Fate should
ever inflict such a thing! Undeveloped, thinks Mr. Darwin,--the poor {129}
short-coming, ill-blanched thorn blossom--going to be a Rose, some day
soon; and, what next?--who knows?--perhaps a Paeony!

3. Then this next branch, in dawn and delight of youth, set with opening
clusters of yet numerable blossom, four, and five, and seven, edged, and
islanded, and ended, by the sharp leaves of freshest green, deepened under
the flowers, and studded round with bosse