Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



How inherently graceful and how incorrigibly un- 

 gainly different species are ! What provincialism in the 

 apple-tree, that never had an ungracious thought in its 

 life, and what a type of an exquisite the tulip-tree is ; 

 yet the latter is an utterly loveless creature, while the 

 homely apple-tree's dear old deformities are buried 

 fathoms deep in virtues. 



One cannot study trees without being quickly re- 

 minded how nature's changeful temperament is echoed 

 or reflected in everything around him. Clouds mass 

 themselves according to season ; winds know the time 

 of the year, and tune their airs accordingly ; Novem- 

 ber sighs are never heard in summer nights. Yet what 

 one sees depends more on the seer than the seen. 

 Thoreau got more than a European trip out of a little 

 tramp from Boston to Mount Wachusett, only fifty miles 

 away ; but he was one of the few that can get the satis- 

 faction of a diamond out of a dewdrop. 



It seems strange to think that undulations of air go 

 on and on in noiseless flight, becoming sound only when 

 they reach a living ear, much as lake-waves roll on in 

 silence till they break upon the shore ; that rays of light 

 are dark as night until they strike a living eye. Tem- 

 pests sweep over the mountain-sides and break down 

 trees, but there is no roar in the forest-tops, except 

 there be an ear to hear it ; otherwise the silence of the 

 grave prevails throughout the turmoil. Solar rays, 

 though they pierce to the remotest star, after the lapse 

 of many thousand years, can never become bright unless 

 they strike an optic nerve. The interplanetary spaces 

 are not luminous, unless there be a spectator of the scene. 



38 



