Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute its narrow
sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems, is there of
notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little
tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point—not a perfect
point, either, but blunt and unfinished—by no means a creditable or
apparently much-cared-for example of Nature’s workmanship, made only
to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven; and a
little pale hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull
brown fibers of roots.
And yet think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers
that beam in summer air, and of all the strong and goodly trees, pleasant
to the eyes or good for food—stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak,
scented citron, burdened vine—there be any by man so deeply loved, by God
so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green.
—_John Ruskin_ (_Modern Painters_).
[Illustration]
’Tis education forms the common mind
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
—_Alexander Pope._