Central Park 



never that of magnificent glooms and storms ; the arena 

 is too limited for the wilder, more rugged views that so 

 invigorate the soul ; and the roughness and artless negli- 

 gence of the forest, mountain, and vale, the far horizon 

 and the wind-swept lake, afford a range of pleasures 

 never found where the scene comprises only a multi- 

 tude of small perfections. 



In nature's vastness human touch can neither mend 

 nor mar her sublime effects. How magnificent is a great 

 forest, how profound its eternal repose ! One leaves the 

 din of human strife behind in entering its almost sacred 

 precincts, a sort of temple not made with hands. In 

 what restful, perfect silence works that immense machin- 

 ery of life ! Tons of water coursing incessantly upward 

 through all the trunks to their very tips, expansion in 

 billions of twigs and leaves, consolidation of wood-fibre 

 every instant, swelling of every bough and bole, the 

 production of an immeasurable mass of flower and fruit, 

 chemical action on the mightiest scale, by a forest energy 

 as frictionless, inaudible, and irresistible as that which 

 drives the planets in their orbits. Multiply the vital 

 force of one such forest by the thousands that cover all 

 the mountain slopes and plains, and how stupendous 

 nature's enginery appears ! 



May not our sympathy with trees spring partly from 

 the fact that they, more than other forms of vegetation, 

 seem linked with us in a common mortality? Youth, 

 manhood vigor, old age, and decay are theirs as ours : 

 certainly with no other object in nature below the grade 



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