any and try to glean some of Nature's own lessons of
fitness. How instinctively we seek, for a winter ramble, the shelter of
the woodland copse, which is not far distant from any English country
habitation. The broad grass drive is hoar with frosty rime in the shadow
of the bushes and crisp under foot. Under the trees the ground on either
side is carpeted with Ivy. The lithe, trailing stems, wreathed with
their shining, taper-fingered leaves, so exquisitely pencilled, are
cushioned on the soft, feathery moss, or twine in and out amongst the
Hazel stocks, or creep at will up the nearest tree trunk. One can
scarcely look at Ivy on a winter's day without a thrill of admiration,
especially this woodland sort, for, mark it well, Nature never
encourages the coarse-leaved Ivy of common cultivation within her
domains. How perfect in its grace is this fine-leaved Ivy, how utterly
content with its surroundings, how resolutely cheerful, be the
circumstances of weather or situation what they may! Clinging lowly to
the ground or mounting to the topmost branch of some tall Pine, it is
equally at home, and why should we not agree with that good naturalist,
Charles Waterton, in his assertion that forest tree was never injured by
its clasping stems? An English plant for our English climate, it may be
used to make beautiful an unsightly building, to clothe a decaying tree
stump, as bush or border or mantle, in a hundred different ways, yet it
is never out of character, and never touches a jarring note.

Then those tall Hollies, see how dauntlessly they stand up above the
undergrowth of Hazel. How living and warm, in their ruddy glow, are the
clustering berries in the glint of the fearless leaves. For expedience
sake, their lower branches have been trimmed away, and greatly we gain
by it, for otherwise that lovely contrast of their ashen-grey stems
would be hidden from our eyes; but over yonder a fine old Holly tree
stands alone, which axe and knife have left untouched, and how graceful
is the curven sweep of its feathering boughs. No foreign evergreen can
excel it for symmetry of form or winter garniture of leaf and fruit.
Life is astir, too, in the brown twigs of the Hazel bushes. The infant
year is not more than a week or two old, yet already the tasselled
catkins are swinging in the lightest rustle of the sighing wind, and
begin to lift up their tiers of small woolly cowls to set free the
yellow pollen-dust. And so we may go on our way