258 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



Branch 

 ramiflca- 



turns. 



Thepathetic 

 fallacy. 



harsh trunks are often broken with boles, and 

 their limbs may take angle lines or prong out 

 like the horns of a deer. Very different from 

 such an angular growth as the oak is the stately 

 elm, its long limbs branching and falling so 

 gracefully, the weeping willow that throws its 

 branches up and over like the spray from a 

 fountain, the round, ball-shaped horse-chest- 

 nut, or the long-armed, white-breasted birch of 

 the mountains. 



The locust, the sycamore, the tulip, the lin- 

 den, the nut-trees and the fruit-trees are just 

 as individual and peculiar in their forms. The 

 most commonplace hill-side will show innumer- 

 able classes, families, and groups of trees ; and 

 to the romanticist many of these growths con- 

 vey significant meanings by their forms or move- 

 ments. It is doubtless an application of the 

 pathetic fallacy to think of the willow as " sad/' 

 and yet the droop of its branches, the wave of 

 its leaves, lead the poets to make such a state- 

 ment. In the same associative way, the pine on 

 the mountain-top is " solemn " or " lonely/' the 

 yew and the cypress are " mourners o'er the 

 dead/' the oak is the " monarch of the lorest." 

 Their look and bearing suggest such descrip- 

 tions; and it is not strange that man should 



