CHAPTER XVII. 



MY FRIEND THE ANDROMEDA. 



DO not know why it is, but the 

 appearance of a tree frequently pre- 

 sents itself to my mind in a semi- 

 personal, or I might almost say 

 human, way. This is fanciful, no 

 doubt, but only another instance of 

 the facility with which the mind 

 clothes simple objects of the senses with its own less simple 

 drapery of the imagination. Association of ideas may, 

 perhaps, account for it. When a tree is graceful, slender, or 

 drooping, we think immediately of womanly metaphors, 

 like the poet's epithet of " Lady of the Woods," as applied 

 to the birch ; and I fail to see any objection to such an 

 innocent misconception. It not only pleases without doing 

 harm to any one, but it does more. Such an attitude of 

 mind tends to develop a more sympathetic consideration and 

 study of plants under varying conditions. Horses, dogs, and 

 even some comparatively worthless human beings, gain and 

 have gained, during all time, much of this sympathetic 



