THE WOODS. 181 



the unreasoning destruction of the forests in his day, 

 when he says (Psalm Ixxiv, 5, 6) of the enemies of 

 Zion : 



"They seemed as men that lifted up axes upon a thicket 

 of trees. And now all the carved work thereof they break 

 down with hatchet and hammers." 



It was but natural that the singer of the twenty- 

 third Psalm should have hated to witness the devasta- 

 tion of the woods. Abraham's tent was pitched be- 

 neath the oaks of Mamre, in that far-off picture of 

 Genesis, when he and Sarah refreshed their guests, and 

 he stood near them as they ate, "under the tree." 

 Adam first walked beneath the trees; the dove brought 

 the leaf of an olive-tree to the ark; it was branches of 

 trees which were strewn before Jesus at His entrance 

 into Jerusalem; and the leaves of the tree of life, in 

 John's concluding vision, are for the healing of the 

 nations. 



Even Dante, medievalist though he was, felt the 

 majesty of the forest. Ruskin said that Dante's de- 

 scription of his entrance into the Earthly Paradise, in 

 "II Purgatorio," was "the sweetest passage of wood 

 description which exists in literature." Shall we read 

 some from it? 1 



"Fain now to search within and round about the divine 

 forest dense and living, which tempered the new day to my 

 eyes, without longer waiting I left the bank, taking the level 

 ground very slowly, over the soil that everywhere breathes 

 fragrance. A sweet breeze that had no variation in itself 



1 Using Norton's translation. 



