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IN a garden there once grew a beautiful, blossoming thorn. When the
spring came, for a fortnight it was always clothed with a robe of white
blossoms. They seemed at once relics of winter, and promises of summer.
It was as if Winter, in departing from the earth, had left behind a
fragment of his snowy vestments; and Spring, touching them with her
magic wand, had transformed them from snow-wreaths into wreaths of
snowy blossoms. They were beautiful even in fading; and for many days
after the whiteness had gone, they glowed into a delicate pink, and
strewed the earth with silky petals when they fell.
* Thorns are abortive leaf-buds. Spines are the lower leaves of plants
metamorphosed into bristles, to guard the young tree from the attacks
of cattle. This little parable was suggested by a passage in "Modern
Painters."
On this thorn, one spring, a little brown leaf-bud formed, at the foot
of a green twig, the cradle of the green twigs of the next spring. But
it happened that, as this brown leaf-bud watched the beauty of the
flowers, it grew discontented with its destiny:—
"Why am not I a flower-bud?" it murmured, inside its little brown
casing. "That would be worth living for!—To fill the air with delicate
fragrance, to be sung to by the birds, to be gathered by human hands
as a treasure; or even to live unnoticed by any one, but only to be a
flower!—A beautiful, fragrant creature, with a coat of many colours,
and a crown of golden stamens, and with promise in its heart;—that
would be worth living for! But to be a leaf-bud, a brown, dark, hard
leaf-bud!—It would be better to die at once."
And a discontented shiver ran through its veins; and all that summer
it never cared to drink in sun or rain, but sat and shivered, and
shrivelled on its stem, while all around it, meek and happy buds
were growing strong and full of life, nourished by the same rain and
sunshine. And in the spring, when the white shower of snowy flowers
came again on the thorn-tree, and the other leaf-buds had expanded
into green twigs, waving and whispering in the breeze, with each a new
bud at its feet, the envious and discontented bud had shrivelled and
narrowed itself into a thorn, which pierced the hand of the child, as
it reached up to gather the spray of fair white blossom.
* * * *
In a field near this garden, there grew a green shrub, which at the top
expanded into luxuriant branches, giving shade at mid-day to man and
beast. But from the lower branches, instead of broad green leaves, grew
long sharp spines. One summer day, these spines said to each other, in
their short and broken speech, for they could not wave and rustle in
the wind like the leaves:—
"We are not worthy to live on the same tree with the beautiful forest
leaves which wave in the fresh air above us. We can make no refreshing
sound as they do; we give no shade as they do to any creature; and we
only prick any one that tries to touch us. But it is very pleasant to
us to be allowed to grow from the same trunk as they; and it is very
kind of the sweet leaves to sing to us as if we belonged to them, and
not to be ashamed of us. We are certainly most happily situated; so far
beyond what we have any right to expect!"
But all the leaves rustled in a joyous chorus, and said:—"You are our
elder sisters, meek and useful spines! If it had not been for you, we
should never have come into life at all, and man and beast would have
had no shade from us. The hungry cattle would have eaten us before we
unfolded, and our parent-tree would never have grown to what it is, had
it not been for you, our faithful and patient guardians. If you had
rebelled against the gracious hand that moulds us all, and prevented
our expanding into leaves, we should all have perished together long
ago. We owe our life to you!" murmured the leaves.
And the rough spines quivered through all their faithful hearts at the
words of the leaves.
Then the master passed by, and he said:—"Well done, my faithful spines!
You have done your work, and guarded my treasures well. But for you, my
trees would have had no leaves, and my fields no shade."
And the spines wondered, and rejoiced greatly; for they had never
thought that, in meekly and contentedly bearing their rough lot, and
being what they were meant to be, they were serving the master, and
doing such good work for others.