IN PRAISE OF THE WEYMOUTH PINE. 239 



every comer, nor, indeed, by any, except 

 at happy moments. In this temple all hear- 

 ing is given by inspiration, for which reason 

 the pine-tree's language is inarticulate, as 

 Jesus spake in parables. 



The pine wood loves a clean floor, and 

 is intolerant of undergrowth. Grasses and 

 sedges, with all bushes, it frowns upon, as a 

 model housekeeper frowns upon dirt. A 

 plain brown carpet suits it best, with a mod- 

 est figure of green preferably of evergreen 

 woven into it; a tracery of partridge- 

 berry vine, or, it may be, of club moss, with 

 here and there a tuft of pipsissewa and py- 

 rola. Its mood is sombre, its taste severe. 

 Yet I please myself with noticing that the 

 pine wood, like the rest of us, is not without 

 its freak, its amiable inconsistency, its one 

 "tender spot," as we say of each other. It 

 makes a pet of one of our oddest, brightest, 

 and showiest flowers, the pink lady's-slip- 

 per, and by some means or other has enticed 

 it away from the peat bog, where it surely 

 should be growing, along with the calopogon, 

 the pogonia, and the arethusa, and here it is, 

 like some rare Exotic, thriving in a bed of 

 sand and on a mat of brown needles. Who 



