The Rescue of an Old Place 



that after taking great pains to make a 

 tree grow, we cannot make up our minds 

 to disturb it for fear it will be in the way 

 in the future, and so we postpone the evil 

 day. Possibly they will do better in their 

 wind-swept situation for not being widely 

 Trees/or separated, and for the next generation, 

 generation, which will be unrestrained by our senti- 

 ments, we have provided some small Elms 

 that ought to be good trees by the time 

 the short-lived Maples are beginning to 

 shuffle off their mortal coil. We know 

 that the least enduring of them will out- 

 live us, unless we emulate old Parr, and 

 the famous Countess of Desmond, 



Who lived to the age of a hundred and ten, 

 And died by a fall from a Cherry-tree then. 



Elms to be All we ask is that they will hurry to shel- 

 < t^ph e . n ' ter us from the burning afternoon sun, to 

 which our front is exposed, and when their 

 task is done, the noble Elms, which are 

 " a hundred years growing, a hundred 

 years standing, a hundred years dying," 

 shall be our monument when this house, 

 like its ancient predecessor, shall have 

 crumbled to ruin. 



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