ver see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?

FLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.

L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a
shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they
are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?

FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I
suppose.

L. Now you have it, Florrie.

VIOLET (_sighing_). There are so many beautiful things we never see!

L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we
should all sigh for,--that there are so many ugly things we never see.

VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!

L. You had better say, 'We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to be
glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can
ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than
his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.

VIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?

L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our
neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an
inch of a green leaf in a brown stone; and takes more notice of it than
of all the green in the wood: and you, or I, or any of us, would be
unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but
we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of
women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the
brooks in Vallombrosa;--and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing
had happened.

MAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.

L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other
day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him and played no
croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, you
must let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questions
till I've done: for we branch ('exfoliate,' I should say,
mineralogically) always into something else,--though that's my fault
more than yours; but I must go straight on now. You have got a distinct
notion, I hope, of leaf-crystals; and you see the sort of look they
have: you can easily remember that 'folium' is Latin for a leaf, and
that the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called
'folia;' but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones,
other things that are like it in struct