46 A SPRAY OP PINE. 



" Who liveth by the rugged pint 

 Foundeth a heroic line;" 



says Emerson. 



" Who liveth in the palace hall 

 Waneth fast and spendeth all." 



The pines of Norway and Sweden sent out the vi- 

 kings, and out of the pine woods of northern Europe 

 came the virile barbarian overrunning the effete south- 

 ern countries. 



" And grant to dwellers with the pine 

 Dominion o'er the palm and vine." 



There is something sweet and piny about the northern 

 literatures as contrasted with those of the voluble and 

 passionate south something in them that heals the 

 mind's hurts like a finer balsam. In reading Bjorn- 

 son, or Andersen, or Russian Tourgueneff, though 

 one may not be in contact with the master spirits of 

 the world, he is yet inhaling an atmosphere that is 

 resinous and curative ; he is under an influence that 

 is arboreal, temperate, balsamic. 



" The white pine," says Wilson Flagg in his " Woods 

 and Waysides of New England," " has no legendary 

 history. Being an American tree, it is celebrated 

 neither in poetry nor romance." Not perhaps in 

 Old World poetry and romance, but certainly in that 

 of the New World. The New England poets have 

 not overlooked the pine, how much they may have 

 gone abroad for their themes and tropes. Whittier's 

 " Playmate " is written to the low monotone of the 

 pine. 



