o stand upright on stems quite unable to
support it, and tumbles helplessly into the neighbouring copsewood,
taking every one's arm without asking leave. A few ages hence, its
ablest descendants will probably have made their choice, if they
have constitution enough to survive in the battle of life--which,
from the commonness of the plant, they seem likely to have. And
what their choice will be, there is little doubt. There are trees
here of a truly noble nature, whose ancestors have conquered ages
since; it may be by selfish and questionable means. But their
descendants, secure in their own power, can afford to be generous,
and allow a whole world of lesser plants to nestle in their
branches, another world to fatten round their feet. There are
humble and modest plants, too, here--and those some of the
loveliest--which have long since cast away all ambition, and are
content to crouch or perch anywhere, if only they may be allowed a
chance ray of light, and a chance drop of water wherewith to perfect
their flowers and seed. But, throughout the great republic of the
forest, the motto of the majority is--as it is, and always has been,
with human beings--'Every one for himself, and the devil take the
hindmost.' Selfish competition, overreaching tyranny, the temper
which fawns and clings as long as it is down, and when it has risen,
kicks over the stool by which it climbed--these and the other 'works
of the flesh' are the works of the average plant, as far as it can
practise them. So by the time the Bamboo-vine makes up its mind, it
will have discovered, by the experience of many generations, the
value of the proverb, 'Never do for yourself what you can get
another to do for you,' and will have developed into a true high
climber, selfish and insolent, choking and strangling, like yonder
beautiful green pest, of which beware; namely, a tangle of Razor-
grass. {162a} The brother, in old times, of that broad-leaved sedge
which carries the shot-seeds, it has long since found it more
profitable to lean on others than to stand on its own legs, and has
developed itself accordingly. It has climbed up the shrubs some
fifteen feet, and is now tumbling down again in masses of the purest
deep green, which are always softly rounded, because each slender
leaf is sabre-shaped, and always curves inward and downward into the
mass, presenting to the paper thousands of minute saw-edges, hard
enough