FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN. 209 



spondence between man and the tree ;" thus an indispensable 

 element in that shining web of uses which is the universe, 

 the mystical and scientific representations of the tree seem 

 to be numberless. 



"All life is figured as a tree. Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of 

 Existence, has its roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela 

 or Death ; its trunk reaches up heaven-high, spreads its 

 branches over the whole Universe: it is the Tree of Ex- 

 istence. At the foot of it, in the Death-Kingdom, sit three 

 nornas, Fates, the Past, Present, and Future, watering its 

 roots from the sacred Well. Its boughs, with their buddings 

 and disleafings events, things suffered, things done, catas- 

 trophes stretch through all lands and times. Is not every 

 leaf of it a biography, every fibre there an act or word ? 

 Its boughs are Histories of Nations. The rustle of it is 

 the noise of Human Existence, onward as from of old. It 

 grows there, the breath of human passion rustling through 

 it; or storm-tossed, the storm-wind howling through it 

 like the voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree 

 of Existence. It is the Past, the Present, and the Future ; 

 what was done, what is doing, what will be done ; the in- 

 finite conjugation of the verb to do. Considering how hu- 

 man things circulate, each inextricably in communion with 

 all, how the word I speak to you to-day is borrowed, not 

 from Ulfila the Maesogoth only, but from all men since the 

 first man began to speak, I find no similitude so true as 

 this of a Tree. Beautiful ; altogether beautiful and great. 

 The Machine of the Universe; Alas ! ! do but think of 

 that in contrast ! ! "* 



"The incorruptible being is likened unto the tree Az- 

 wattha, whose root is ABOVE and whose branches are BELOW, 

 and whose leaves are the veds. He who knoweth that, is 

 acquainted with the veds. Its branches growing from the 

 three Goon or qualities, whose lesser shoots are the objects 

 of the organs of sense, spread forth some high and some 



* "Heroes in History;" Thomas Carlyle. 

 IS* 



