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NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



creators of sentiment. The sound is not only 

 restful, but under moonlight when the dark 

 shadows of the wood seem doubly mysterious, 

 it is suggestive of music, poetry, memories, 

 love, life, death all things of passion and of 

 beauty tinged with sadness. 



It is a great change from the summer breeze 

 and the barred moonlight on the wood-path 

 to the windy days of March, when the bare 

 branches moan under storm-skies and the sere 

 leaves of the oak grate dryly on their brittle 

 stems. It is not the season of poetic sounds, 

 but it is the best time of all the year to study 

 the trunks, boughs, and branches of the trees. 

 Indeed, the windy March has always been 

 reviled in the name of the leafy June ; and yet 

 it is a most interesting month, full of promise, 

 full of graceful lines, full of silver-gray beauty. 

 The trees stand stripped and bare, the trunks 

 are blackened and weather-stained by winter 

 rains, the twigs have not yet begun to redden 

 under the ascending sap ; but how beautifully 

 the branches ramify and spread ; how tenderly 

 the little stems bunch up together or are etched 

 in dark lines against the sky ! What contours, 

 what delicate light-and-shade, what infinite 

 grace of line these bare branches show us ! 



