2 FAMILIAR TREES 



endurance which can hardly be better described than 

 in the following passage by Oliver Wendell Holmes: 



"There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which, 

 if well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language. 

 Take the Oak, for instance, and we find it always standing as a type 

 of Btrength and endurance. I wonder if you ever thought of the 

 single mark of supremacy which distinguishes this tree from all our 

 other forest trees? All the rest of them shirk the work of resisting 

 gravity; the Oak alone defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction 

 for its limbs, so that their whole weight may tell, and then stretches 

 them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the strain may be mighty enough 

 to be worth resisting. You will find that, in passing from the 

 xtreme downward droop of the branches of the Weeping Willow to 

 the extreme upward inclination of those of the Poplar, they sweep 

 nearly half a circle. At ninety degrees the Oak stops short : to slant 

 upward another degree would mark infirmity of purpose; to bend 

 downwards, weakness of organisation." 



The forester may condemn as " stag-headed " the 

 aged tree whose boughs, in Shakespeare's language, are 



" mossed with age, 

 And high top bald with dry antiquity." 



It may even be hollow, the mere shell of bark 

 supporting a sadly-reduced tale of branches that 

 struggle gallantly to put forth year by year leaves, 

 dwindled in size, from their knotty twigs, and acorns 

 whose very abundance argues an infirmity of general 

 health. Still it will, perhaps, be found to be diligently 

 striving to stem the advance of the inner canker 

 of decrepitude by a slight formation of new wood 

 beneath the bark ; and we may thus witness the 

 dying efforts of the aged monarch. The hollow shell 

 may be now supported by the strong clasping arms 

 of the Ivy, ever young ; or the stem, bared of its bark, 

 may lift its blackened, blasted arms in sad protest 

 to the heavens whence fell the fatal lightning. 



