44 A SPRAY OF PINE. 



versatility, more resources. The pine has but one 

 idea, and that is to mount heavenward by regular 

 steps, tree of fate, tree of dark shadows and of 

 mystery. 



The pine is the tree of silence. Who was the God- 

 dess of Silence ? Look for her altars amid the pines, 

 silence above, silence below. Pass from deciduous 

 woods into pine woods of a windy day and you think 

 the day has suddenly become calm. Then how silent 

 to the foot ! One walks over a carpet of pine needles 

 almost as noiselessly as over the carpets of our dwell- 

 ings. Do these halls lead to the chambers of the 

 great that all noise should be banished from them ? 

 Let the designers come here and get the true pattern 

 for a carpet a soft yellowish brown with only a 

 red leaf, or a bit of gray moss, or a dusky lichen 

 scattered here and there ; a background that does not 

 weary or bewilder the eye, or insult the ground-loving 

 foot. 



How friendly the pine-tree is to man, so docile 

 and available as timber and so warm and protective 

 as shelter. Its balsam is salve to his wounds, its 

 fragrance is long life to his nostrils ; an abiding, per- 

 ennial tree, tempering the climate, cool as murmur- 

 ing waters in summer and like a wrapping of fur in 

 winter. 



The deciduous trees are inconstant friends that fail 

 us when adverse winds do blow, but the pine and all 

 its tribe look winter cheerily in the face, tossing the 

 snow, masquerading in his arctic livery, in fact hold- 



