Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/226

212 put in that sneer (two lines before) at my note on the meaning of the Homeric and Platonic Sirens, at the very moment when I was doubting whether I would or would not tell you the significance of the last song of Ariel in 'The Tempest.'

I had half determined not, but now I shall. And this was what brought me to think of it:—

165. Yesterday afternoon I called on Mr. H. C. Sorby, to see some of the results of an inquiry he has been following all last year, into the nature of the colouring matter of leaves and flowers.

You most probably have heard (at all events, may with little trouble hear) of the marvellous power which chemical analysis has received in recent discoveries respecting the laws of light.

My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of forest leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying.

And, last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundredth part