42 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



"Who liveth by the ragged pine 

 Foundeth a heroic line ; " 



says Emerson. 



" Who liveth in the palace hall 

 Waneth fast and spendeth all." 



The pines of Norway and Sweden sent out the 

 vikings, and out of the pine woods of northern 

 Europe came the virile barbarian overrunning the 

 effete southern countries. 



"And grant to dwellers with the pine 

 Dominion o'er the palm and vine." 



There is something sweet and piny about the north- 

 ern literatures as contrasted with those of the volu- 

 ble and passionate south, something in them that 

 heals the mind's hurts like a finer balsam. In 

 reading Bjb'rnson, or Andersen, or Eussian Turge'- 

 neff, though one may not be in contact with the 

 master spirits of the world, he is yet inhaling an 

 atmosphere that is resinous and curative; he is 

 under an influence that is arboreal, temperate, bal- 

 samic. 



"The white pine," says Wilson Flagg in his 

 "Woods and By- Ways of New England," "has no 

 legendary history. Being an American tree, it is 

 celebrated neither in poetry nor romance." Not 

 perhaps in Old World poetry and romance, but cer- 

 tainly in that of the New World. The New Eng- 

 land poets have not overlooked the pine, however 

 much they may have gone abroad for their themes 

 and tropes. Whittier's "My Playmate" is written 

 to the low monotone of the pine. 



