Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/167

 alive, at least of those that I consider to have life; I am not sure about trees and plants, and such creatures as have no soul.

At this she smiled and said, 'Thou needest not have any more doubts concerning the one kind of creatures than about the other. Canst thou not see that each plant and each tree will grow best in land that suits it best and is natural and familiar to it, where it feels that it can grow quickest and wither slowest? Some plants and trees have their home on hills, some in fens, some on moors, others among stones, others again in bare sand. Take any tree or plant thou wilt from the place where its home it and its habits of growth, and set it in an unfamiliar spot; it will not grow there at all, but will wither, for the nature of every country is to bring forth plants and trees like itself, and it does so in this case. It nurses them and helps them very carefully so long as their nature allows them to grow. Why, thinkest thou, does every seed creep into the earth and grow into shoots and roots but because it wants the trunk and the tree-top to stand the firmer and the longer? Canst thou not understand, though thou canst not see it, that all the part of the tree that grows in the course of twelve months begins at the roots, and, growing upwards to the stem, passes along the core and the bark to the top, and afterwards along the boughs, until it springs forth in leaves and flowers and shoots? Canst thou not perceive that every living thing is most tender and delicate inside? Why, thou canst see how a tree is clad and wrapped about with the