934 IN PRAISE OF THE WEYMOUTH PINE. 
faster since it was cut down than ever it did 
while standing. I care not to argue the 
point. Rather, let me be glad that a tree 
is a tree, whether large or small. What a 
wonder of wonders it would seem to unac- 
customed eyes! As some lover of imagina- 
tive delights wished that he could forget 
Shakespeare and read him new, so I would 
cheerfully lose all memory of my king of 
Weymouth pines, if by that means I might 
for once look upon a tree as upon something 
I had never seen or dreamed of. 
For that purpose, were it given me to 
choose, I would have one that had grown 
by itself; full of branches on all sides, but 
with no suggestion of primness; in short, a 
perfect tree, a miracle hardly to be found 
in any forest, since the forest would be no 
better than a park if the separate members 
of it were allowed room to develop each af- 
ter its own law. Nature is too cunning an 
artist to spoil the total effect of her picture 
by too fond a regard for the beauty of par- 
ticular details. 
I once passed a lazy, dreamy afternoon in 
a small clearing on a Canadian mountain- 
side, where the lumbermen had left standing 
