Part 12

I saw the lights of the castle again gleam over the dark billows as the door opened to the regal wanderer asking shelter. I saw the haughty look of the proud Lorn, his lifelong enemy. I saw the bridal feast changed into warlike debate, and Scott’s lines came to my mind with pictured force:

“Wild was the scene; each sword was bare, Back streamed each chieftain’s shaggy hair In gloomy opposition set, Eyes, hands, and brandished weapons met; Blue gleaming o’er the social board, Flashed to the torches many a sword; And soon those bridal lights may shine On purple blood for rosy wine.”

I saw the Abbott, with hoodless head and withered cheek stop upon the threshold, while

“Threat and murmur died away, Till on the crowded hall there lay Such silence as the deadly still, Ere bursts the thunder on the hill; With blade advanced, each chieftain bold Showed like the sworder’s form of old, As wanting still the torch of life To wake the marble into strife.”

I heard the haughty words of Argentine demanding Bruce, as England’s prisoner, and the loud turmoil of fiercer chiefs demanding his life, while the brave Ronald cries:

“Forbear! Not in my sight while brand I wear, O’ermatched by odds, shall warrior fall, Or blood of stranger stain my hall! This ancient fortress of my race Shall be misfortune’s resting-place, Shelter and shield of the distressed, No slaughterhouse for shipwrecked guest.”

I heard the Abbott’s stern charge asking the heroic King if he knew reason aught, why his curse should not be pronounced in requital of that rash deed at the high altar of the Church of Dumfries. I heard the eloquent defense of the King, and the unexpected and sublime blessing of the Abbott.

“Abbott!” the Bruce replied, “thy charge It boots not to dispute at large. This much, howe’er, I bid thee know, No selfish vengeance dealt the blow, For Comyn died his country’s foe. Nor blame I friends whose ill-timed speed Fulfilled my soon-repented deed, Nor censure those from whose stern tongue The dire anathema has rung. I only blame my own wild ire, By Scotland’s wrongs incensed to fire. Heaven knows my purpose to atone, Far as I may, the evil done, And hears a penitent’s appeal From papal curse and prelate’s zeal. My first and dearest task achieved, Fair Scotland from her thrall relieved, Shall many a priest in cope and stole Say requiem for Red Comyn’s soul. While I the blessed cross advance, And expiate this unhappy chance In Palestine, with sword and lance. But, while content the Church should know My conscience owns the debt I owe, Unto De Argentine and Lorn The name of traitor I return, Bid them defiance stern and high, And give them in their throats the lie; These brief words spoke, I speak no more, Do what thou wilt; my shrift is o’er.” Like man by prodigy amazed, Upon the king the abbott gazed; Then o’er his pallid features glance Convulsions of ecstatic trance, And undistinguished accents broke The awful silence ere he spoke. “De Bruce! I rose with purpose dread To speak my curse upon thy head, To give thee as an outcast o’er To him who burns to shed thy gore; But, like the Midianite of old, Who stood on Zophim, heaven-controlled, I feel within my aged breast A power that will not be repress’d. It prompts my voice, it swells my veins, It burns, it maddens, it constrains!— De Bruce, thy sacrilegious blow Hath at God’s altar slain thy foe: O’ermastered yet by high behest, I bless thee, and thou shalt be blest! Blessed in the hall and in the field, Under the mantle as the shield. Avenger of thy country’s shame, Restorer of her injured fame, Blessed in thy scepter and thy sword, De Bruce, fair Scotland’s rightful lord, Blessed in thy deeds and in thy fame, What lengthened honors wait thy name! In distant ages sire to son Shall tell thy tale of freedom won, And teach his infants in the use Of earliest speech to falter Bruce.”

There is nothing, to my mind, in any poem more dramatic than this unexpected prayer of the abbott; and the reader does not wonder that

“O’er the astonished throng Was silence, awful, deep and long.”

The scene of the poem now changes to the stormy island of Skye, where Sir Walter pauses to give one of his beautiful descriptions in the fourteenth and fifteenth divisions of canto third.

The fourth canto takes the king _en route_ past the island of Staffa, with its Fingal’s Cave, and Iona, with its sainted shrine—the cradle of Christianity in Britain, now in ruin. His description of Staffa is one of the most beautiful in English verse:

“Where, as to shame the temples decked By skill of earthly architect, Nature herself, it seemed would raise A minster to her Maker’s praise! Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns, or her arches bend; Nor of a theme less solemn tells That mighty surge that ebbs and swells, And still, between each awful pause, From the high vault an answer draws, In varied tones prolonged and high, That mocks the organ’s melody. Nor doth its entrance front in vain To old Iona’s holy fame, That nature’s voice might seem to say, ‘Well hast thou done, frail child of clay! Thy humble powers that stately shrine Tasked high and hard—but witness mine!’”

In canto fifth the king returns to Scotland. He rallies his adherents, and the sixth canto closes with a graphic description of the battle of Bannockburn. The incidents are so stirring that we almost forget the fate of fair Edith and her brave Roland, but the last line of the poem assures us that they are at last happily wedded.

“The Lord of the Isles” does not possess the pleasing qualities of the “Lady of the Lake,” or the sustained vigor of “Marmion;” but it is a noble poem throughout, and abounds with passages revealing the deep reverence and exalted character of the author. The reader will note the heart-spoken prayer and God-speed of the priest as King Robert embarks upon his uncertain mission:

“O heaven! when swords for freedom shine And monarch’s right, the cause is thine! Edge doubly every patriot blow! Beat down the banners of the foe! And be it to the nations known, That victory is from God alone.”

In connection with the “Lord of the Isles” and “Castle Dangerous,” it is well to read carefully the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of Scott’s “Tales of a Grandfather.” It is also pleasant to note that the friendship between Robert Bruce and James Douglas was constant and unchanging; in fact, their unwavering trust and fidelity are emphasized by the dying wish of the king, who desired his heart to be carried to Jerusalem after his death, and requested Douglas to take charge of it. It was in fulfillment of a vow which he had been unable to perform—to go to Palestine and fight for the Holy Sepulchre. “Douglas wept bitterly as he accepted the office, the last mark of the Bruce’s friendship and confidence. He caused a case of silver to be made, into which he put the heart, and wore it around his neck, by a string of silk and gold.” He set off with a gallant train of the bravest men in Scotland. But the doughty James found an opportunity in Spain for a skirmish with the infidels, which he could not let pass; he was overpowered by numbers, and, seeing no chance for escape, he took from his neck the Bruce’s heart, and throwing it before him, exclaimed, “Pass first in fight, as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee or die.” His body was found after the battle lying upon the silver case, and the heart of the Scottish king was returned to his native country, and interred beside the high altar under the east window of Melrose Abbey.

PLANT NUTRITION.

By MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M.D.

A living plant feeds, breathes, grows, develops, multiplies, decays, and ultimately dies. In so doing it receives, it spends, it accumulates, it changes. Some of these processes are always in operation, very generally more than one is going on at the same time, and the action of one is modified by and controlled by that of another. Some circumstances and conditions favor these operations, others hinder them.

The nutritive process has to be entered on the creditor side as a receipt. The plant will indeed feed upon itself for a time, or rather it will feed upon what its predecessor left it as an inheritance for this very purpose, or upon the stores accumulated in the plant itself during the preceding season; thus, when a seed, or rather the young plant within the seed, begins to grow, it is at first unable to forage for itself, but it depends for its sustenance on the materials laid up for its use during the preceding season by the parent plant. So the bud of a tree awakening into life, and beginning its career as a shoot which is to bear leaves and flowers, derives its first meals from the reserves accumulated the autumn previously in the parent branch. Very generally a little water, supplied from without, is required before the plant can avail itself of these stored-up provisions, but this is not always indispensable. Potatoes begin to sprout in their cellars or pits, as growers know to their cost, before they can have obtained a drop of water from without. In this latter case there is water enough already in the tuber to allow of food being utilized.

A certain degree of useful heat is, of course, quite indispensable. Practically, no plant will feed when its temperature is reduced as low as the freezing point, and in most cases the heat requires to be considerably greater. Each kind of plant, each individual plant, and indeed each part of a plant, feeds, and performs each item of its life-work best at a certain temperature, and ceases to work at all when the temperature falls below or rises above a certain point. The particular degree, whether most or least favorable, varies according to the plant, its age, stage of growth and various external circumstances, which we need only mention, as their effects will be readily understood without the necessity of explanation.

Leaving, however, on one side, the temperature, we have to consider the water which is so essential, not only in the feeding processes with which we are now concerned, but with every other action of plant life. Fortunately there is, in general, no lack of it; the earth and the air contain their shares of this elementary compound in varying proportions and varying modifications as liquid or gaseous. Besides, the plant itself has so much of it that even at the driest condition compatible with life, it still constitutes a very large proportion of the entire weight. Now, it is as a rule when the plant, the seedling, or the bud is at its driest that growth begins, the necessity for food first manifests itself, and the demand for a further supply of water becomes imperative. How is the demand supplied? We have seen that there is no lack of that fluid. How is it to get into the plant?

When one liquid, say spirit, is poured into another, say water, the two gradually mix. If we suppose these liquids to consist of a number of molecules, then, mixture may be taken to be the result of the displacement say of one molecule of water by one molecule of spirit, and so, throughout the whole quantity of liquid, there is displacement and replacement till at length equilibrium is restored and a thorough diffusion results. This power of diffusion does not always exist. The molecules of water and of oil will not mix or diffuse freely through each other. Water containing carbonic acid gas will not mix, in this sense of the term, with water containing acetate of lead.

It may be a truism to say, that for the process of diffusion the liquids must be diffusible, but the fact must be carefully borne in mind in all questions relating to the feeding of plants. In the case of plants, the phenomenon of diffusion, or the gradual admixture of two liquids of different natures, is complicated by the presence of a membrane in the shape of the cell-wall. The water from the outside has to pass through the membrane to reach the protoplasm on the other side. Speaking broadly, there are no holes in the membrane through which the water can pass. Ingress is secured by that process of diffusion to which reference has just been made, and by virtue of which the molecules of the membrane and the molecules of the water shift and change places; the space that was occupied by a molecule of membrane is now occupied by a molecule of water, and _vice versa_. The access, therefore, of water into the interior of a closed cell is the result of the process of diffusion. Where two liquids mix without any intervening membrane, the mixture is called diffusion simply; where there is an intervening membrane, the diffusion process is known as “osmosis.”

The raw material (the term is not quite accurate, but for illustration sake it may pass) is that very marvelous substance now called “protoplasm.” We must leave it to chemists and microscopists to explain its composition and indicate its appearance.

Diffusion is not equal or alike in all cases; it depends upon the extent to which the two liquids are diffusible, upon their different densities, upon temperature, and a variety of other conditions. So, in the case of osmosis, we have not only the nature of the two fluids to consider, but their relation to the membrane that separates them. The membrane may be much more permeable to one of the two fluids than to the other. Thus, in the case of a living cell, the membrane or wall is much more permeable to water than it is to protoplasm; and so it happens that, while water readily penetrates the membrane and diffuses itself in the protoplasm, protoplasm does not nearly so readily permeate the membrane as the water. Ingress of water is easy and of constant occurrence, egress of protoplasm is rare and exceptional.

Pure water or weak saline solutions, such as are generated in the soil under certain circumstances, pass readily through membrane—that is, the molecules of the one shift and change places with those of the other—while those of gummy or albuminous substances like protoplasm do not. After a time, if there is no outlet for the water absorbed, or if it is not utilized within the plant in some way, absorption and diffusion cease, the cell becomes saturated with water, and until something happens to disarrange the balance, no more is absorbed. But, even in the case where the cell is saturated with water, it may still take up other liquids, because the diffusive power of those other liquids, in relation to the cell-wall and to the protoplasm, is different from that of water, and this absorption may go on in its way till saturation point is reached for each one of them, just as in the case of water. On the other hand, it may happen that the plant may be saturated with other substances, and incapable of taking up more of them, while at the same time pure water may be freely taken up.

Just so much and no more of each particular substance is absorbed, the exact quantity of each being regulated in all cases by the condition and requirements of the cells, their membranous walls, and their contents. Thus it happens that some particular substances may be found by the chemist to exist in large relative proportions in the plant, while the quantity in any given sample of the soil from which it must be derived is sometimes so small as to elude detection. The plant in this case, or some part of it, is so greedy, if we may so say, for this particular substance, that it absorbs all within its reach, and stores it up in its tissues or uses it in some way, the demand ensuring supply. On the other hand, the soil may contain a large quantity of some particular ingredient which is incapable of being absorbed, or which the plant does not or can not make use of, and, in consequence, none is found within the plant. The supply is present, but there is no demand.

The different physical requirements of the plant supply also the explanation of the fact that different plants, grown in the same soil, supplied with the same food, yet vary so greatly in chemical composition. Thus, when wheat and clover are grown together, and afterwards analyzed, it is found that while lime is abundant in the clover, it is relatively in small quantity in the wheat; and silica, which is abundant in the wheat, is absent from the clover. Poisonous substances even may be absorbed, if they are of such a nature as to be capable of absorption; and so the plant may be killed by its own action—by suicide, as it were.

The entrance of water into the plant and the entrance of those soluble materials which a plant derives from the soil are therefore illustrations of the process of osmosis, and are subjected to all the conditions under which osmosis becomes possible, or under which it ceases to act.

One thing we must strive to impress forcibly on the reader, because, if the notion is well grasped, it will enable him to understand plant life so much more vividly. We allude to the continual changes that are going on throughout the whole living fabric of the plant while in its active condition. Cell membrane, the protoplasm, the entire mass of liquid and solid constituents of which the plant consists, are, as we have seen, made up of molecules, each, as it were, with a life of its own, undergoing continual changes according to different circumstances, acting and reacting one upon another so long as any active life remains.

C. L. S. C. WORK.

By REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION C. L. S. C.

Readings for the month: “Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology,” by Dr. J. H. Wythe; “Canadian History;” Chautauqua Text-Book No. 24; “Biographical Stories,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Required Readings, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

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Memorial Day, Sunday, December 9, “Milton’s Day.” See “Memorial Days,” Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 7. Monday, December 10, may be used if preferred.

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Remember the 5 p. m. Sunday “Chautauqua Vesper Service.” Observe the hour personally or as local circles. Now and then a brief public service at this hour may be very profitable.

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There can be no substitute accepted for the “Preparatory Latin course in English.”

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One of our faithful members—a member of the class of ’84—on the first day of October sent this pleasant greeting to the Superintendent of Instruction: “My Dear Doctor—This is opening day. I must send you a line just to keep it—and the Lord keep you!”

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The Sacramento Circle last year answered in writing over 1,000 questions, besides having prepared sixty-two original papers.

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A young lady who has charge of a Young Ladies’ Seminary in Washington, D. C., recently remarked that she had adopted the Chautauqua Text-Books on History as an auxiliary in her school, as they are so condensed and so carefully arranged. She said that at the last examination of her graduating class the influence of the little Text-Books was visible in the remarkable proficiency of the pupils.

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Each C. L. S. C. Local Circle in the study of Biology should secure the services of a local microscopist, if possible. Without the microscope, Biology is like Hamlet with Hamlet left out.

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In one of the leading churches of one of the leading denominations in one of the leading cities of the United States, a strange thing has happened. The president of the local circle of the C. L. S. C. made application for the privilege of holding bi-monthly meetings in a room in the basement of the church, so many of the members of the circle being members of the church. The matter was referred to the president of the board, a leading lawyer, who refused the application. When asked why he should exclude such an auxiliary of the church, and especially a circle containing so much of the religious element, he responded that it “could not be a religious organization, because they were studying biology.” This is very hard to believe if it were not well vouched for. If the church had been a Methodist Episcopal Church, the editor of this column would have felt at liberty to make a few direct remarks; but, as it refers to another very respectable and very orthodox branch of the Holy Catholic Church, he must content himself with this general announcement. What would this leading lawyer have said to the wise man who said: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise;” or to that wiser teacher who commanded his disciples to “consider the lilies.” Biology zoölogical and biology botanical being commended in the Bible, and the study being necessary to the fullest interpretation of the Bible, we commend our legal friend to a little more biblical study.

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