208 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



or hungry sparrow ; showing us once more Providence so 

 much greater, as its creature is feebler. 



This kind of decay excepted, plants, it is thought, are 

 not subject to the destructive operation of internal causes ; 

 vegetable life succumbs to outward influences only. The 

 vitality of trees is certainly almost incredible. No kind 

 of mutilation can, apparently, destroy them. Who has 

 not seen old willow trees, adhering but with a small por- 

 tion of the bark to their roots, and yet continuing to live 

 and to perform their duty ? How beautifully does not 

 the chestnut of our own noble forests send out a crown 

 of young shoots to hide the vacant space where once it 

 reared its mighty stem ? The whole vitality of the inner 

 wood may, in fact, be destroyed ; if only some layers 

 of the bark survive, the tree will vegetate with undi- 

 minished vigor, and continue its life for an almost un- 

 limited period. They will, in very old age, lose some of 

 their height by decay at the top, for it seems as if the 

 sap could no longer ascend the whole lengthy road from 

 the deeply buried roots to the lofty crown, but they con- 

 tinue still to increase in girth, and patiently wait for the 

 stroke of the axe or the fierce rage of the tempest. Thus 

 it is that England boasts of many a yew or an oak tree, 

 which has survived the massive church, by the side of 

 which it was planted, and which yet, spring after spring, 

 shelters the ruins of its once so proud companion, with 

 its dark, refreshing verdure. The tender leaf even resists 

 in its fragile texture, the winds and rains, the burning sun, 

 and the nipping cold of a whole season. Greek and Eo- 

 man sepulchres, stately palaces and lofty monuments over 



