Proserpina, Volume 1 | Page 9

to hold the Plant in its place. The Root is its Fetter.
You think it, perhaps, a matter of course that a plant is not to be a
crawling thing? It is not a matter of course at all. A vegetable might be
just what it is now, as compared with an animal;--might live on earth
and water instead of on meat,--might be as senseless in life, as calm in
death, and in all its parts and apparent structure {28} unchanged; and
yet be a crawling thing. It is quite as easy to conceive plants moving
about like lizards, putting forward first one root and then another, as it
is to think of them fastened to their place. It might have been well for
them, one would have thought, to have the power of going down to the
streams to drink, in time of drought;--of migrating in winter with grim
march from north to south of Dunsinane Hill side. But that is not their
appointed Fate. They are--at least all the noblest of them, rooted to their
spot. Their honour and use is in giving immoveable shelter,--in
remaining landmarks, or lovemarks, when all else is changed:

"The cedars wave on Lebanon, But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
4. Its root is thus a form of fate to the tree. It condemns, or indulges it,
in its place. These semi-living creatures, come what may, shall abide,
happy, or tormented. No doubt concerning "the position in which
Providence has placed them" is to trouble their minds, except so far as
they can mend it by seeking light, or shrinking from wind, or grasping
at support, within certain limits. In the thoughts of men they have thus
become twofold images,--on the one side, of spirits restrained and half
destroyed, whence the fables of transformation into trees; on the other,
of spirits patient and continuing, having root in themselves and in good
ground, capable of all persistent {29} effort and vital stability, both in
themselves, and for the human States they form.
5. In this function of holding fast, roots have a power of grasp quite
different from that of branches. It is not a grasp, or clutch by
contraction, as that of a bird's claw, or of the small branches we call
'tendrils' in climbing plants. It is a dead, clumsy, but inevitable grasp,
by swelling, after contortion. For there is this main difference between
a branch and root, that a branch cannot grow vividly but in certain
directions and relations to its neighbour branches; but a root can grow
wherever there is earth, and can turn in any direction to avoid an
obstacle.[14]
6. In thus contriving access for itself where it chooses, a root contorts
itself into more serpent-like writhing than branches can; and when it
has once coiled partly round a rock, or stone, it grasps it tight,
necessarily, merely by swelling. Now a root has force enough
sometimes to split rocks, but not to crush them; so it is compelled to
grasp by flattening as it thickens; and, as it must have room somewhere,
it alters its own shape as if it were made of {30} dough, and holds the
rock, not in a claw, but in a wooden cast or mould, adhering to its
surface. And thus it not only finds its anchorage in the rock, but binds
the rocks of its anchorage with a constrictor cable.
7. Hence--and this is a most important secondary function--roots bind
together the ragged edges of rocks as a hem does the torn edge of a
dress: they literally stitch the stones together; so that, while it is always

dangerous to pass under a treeless edge of overhanging crag, as soon as
it has become beautiful with trees, it is safe also. The rending power of
roots on rocks has been greatly overrated. Capillary attraction in a
willow wand will indeed split granite, and swelling roots sometimes
heave considerable masses aside, but on the whole, roots, small and
great, bind, and do not rend.[15] The surfaces of mountains are
dissolved and disordered, by rain, and frost, and chemical
decomposition, into mere heaps of loose stones on their desolate
summits; but, where the forests grow, soil accumulates and
disintegration ceases. And by cutting down forests on great mountain
slopes, not only is the climate destroyed, but the danger of superficial
landslip fearfully increased.
8. The second function of roots is to gather for the plant the
nourishment it needs from the ground. This is {31} partly water, mixed
with some kinds of air (ammonia, etc.,) but the plant can get both water
and ammonia from the atmosphere; and, I believe, for the most part
does so; though, when it cannot get water from the air, it will gladly
drink by its roots. But the things