a Wbisper from tbe JMnes. 47 



spirit plays so little part. How strange that it should 

 be so much the same among the children of men and 

 the children of the trees. 



But I seem to have been writing down the pines, 

 and giving them a bad character. I suspect I have 

 been caught in the breath of the " spirit of the age," 

 and blown by it quite off the course of my real senti- 

 ments. It is the defect of the age that we are envi- 

 ous of the strong ; and we find fault with them 

 whenever they are even unconsciously the cause of 

 distress or disaster to the weak who get in the way 

 of their strength, and suffer thereby and therefrom. 

 Ought we, after all, to blame our cousins, the pines, 

 because in being true to themselves, and living strictly 

 and sternly by the law of their family life, they make 

 an environment uncomfortable and impossible for the 

 tree which thrives on a different diet ? Shall we con- 

 demn the man who has attained a dinner of five 

 courses because his diet and his demeanour are dis- 

 tasteful to his fellow-man who dines sumptuously on 

 black bread and bologna ? For myself I hasten to re- 

 pudiate the levelling sentiments which would put me 

 in the attitude of a critic upon the life of the pine-tree. 

 I believe in the pines. I like their family unity. I 

 honour them for their ambition. I do not blame them 

 because they like their own kind best. I admire the 

 way in which they sturdily push for the top. Above 

 all I confess my debt to them for a lesson of deep and 

 vital spiritual import. Whoever sits here in this grove 

 must see how resolutely these pines push out for the 



