FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN. 217 



feet as any other unit, whether animal or man. All 

 men are more or less alike, so are all blades of grass ; all 

 trees are more or less alike, so are the birds in their 

 branches. But the artist who works from Nature had better 

 forget his patterns or stereotype trees of different orders, 

 his model men, birds, and plants; for in the living 

 universe they are all, also, exceedingly unlike each other. 

 Each man and grass-blade is an individual having all those 

 modifications of external or secondary qualities which 

 mark him or it from all other men and grass-blades, and 

 makes it that individual, unlike all other men or grass- 

 blades of the universe. So must the real artist paint the 

 individual tree ; and thus is the world endless in opu- 

 lence of resources, and each form of each new tree is 

 a study, and its integrity and beauty renewed forever. 

 Hence, also, is this worshiper in " God's first temple" envel- 

 oped in a perpetually new atmosphere of light and loveliness ; 

 and thus does he drink from fresh rivers of ethereal wine, and 

 in the deep beatitude of the artist's love of beauty feels that 

 he could be entranced for a thousand years. 



No contrast can be more striking than that which ex- 

 ists between the evergreen trees and the deciduous, or 

 those which assume only a summer dress, being arrayed for 

 occasions. Their forms are as differently suggestive as the 

 substances which constitute their bodies. Different members 

 of the pine family affect the shape of the pyramid, yielding to 

 the imagination the idea of duration, by giving a base which 

 no storm can uproot or turn over, their tapering summits, 

 at the same time, presenting the smallest surfaces for the at- 

 tacking winds. The oak and the beech, very different from 

 the pine, fling out their arms into wide, umbrageous, over- 

 shadowing masses of limbs and twigs, which only seem to 

 wish to grow on and cover the largest space. Thus the pine- 

 tree sings its song and has its dance of joy in the war of the 

 winds, and the tempest's roar is its frolic, while the branches 

 of the oak and beech are whirled and twisted like withs 

 in its fury, their leaves being torn to rags and scattered 



19 



