A BLADE OF GRASS.
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).
’Tis education forms the common mindJust as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
’Tis education forms the common mindJust as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
’Tis education forms the common mindJust as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
’Tis education forms the common mind
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
—Alexander Pope.