MY REAL ESTATE. 7 



making difficult its final inevitable sur- 

 render ; and it must be confessed that the 

 thought of my wood-lot increases my other- 

 wise natural regret at being already so well 

 along on my journey. In a sense I feel my 

 own existence to be bound up with that of 

 my pine-trees ; or, to speak more exactly, 

 that their existence is bound up with mine. 

 For it is a sort of unwritten but inexora- 

 ble law in W , as in fact it appears to 



be throughout New England, that no pine 

 must ever be allowed to reach more than 

 half its normal growth ; so that my trees 

 are certain to fall under the axe as soon as 

 their present owner is out of the way. I 

 am not much given to superstition. There 

 are no longer any dryads, it is to be pre- 

 sumed ; and if there were, it is not clear 

 that they would be likely to take up with 

 pines ; but for all that, I cherish an almost 

 affectionate regard for any trees with which 

 I have become familiar. I have mourned 

 the untimely fate of many ; and now, see- 

 ing that I have been entrusted with the 

 guardianship of these few, I hold myself 

 under a kind of sacred obligation to live as 

 long as possible, for their sakes. 



