102 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



as a sacrilege, and " thanked Ood that these choppers 

 were not able to cut down the clouds." In speaking of 

 the destruction of the pine forests, he says : " Strange 

 that so few men ever come to the woods to see how the 

 pine lives and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the 

 light to see its living success. Most men are content to 

 see the broad boards and sticks of timber brought to 

 market, deeming that the tree's success ; but a dead pine 

 cut down is no more a pine than a dead carcass is a man. 

 It is not the lumberman, who stands nearest the tree, 

 understands it best and loves it most ; it is not he who 

 has bought the stumpage on which it stands, and who 

 must cut into it to find if its heart be sound. All the 

 trees shudder when that man steps on the forest floor. 

 'No, no ; it is the poet who makes the truest use of the 

 tree ; he does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it 

 with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane ; he loves it as he 

 does his living friends and lets it stand. It is the living 

 spirit of the tree with which I sympathize. It may be 

 as immortal as I am, and perchance will go to as high a 

 heaven, there to tower above me still." 



Perhaps no naturalist was more highly endowed 

 with the poetic imagination or held closer communion 

 with the living spirit of nature than Wilson Flagg. By 

 streams and rocks, in fields and woods, the exquisite 

 unseen beings, seen only by the mind's eye of the poet, 

 kept him delightful company. Concerning one of his 

 favorite resorts, a w41d sequestered nook not yet spoiled 

 by art, he says : " Every one who visited it felt inspired 

 with a mysterious sense of cheerfulness and pensive 



