WOODLAND PATHS 



day and before midnight it was dead; thus 

 short-lived is frenzy. I do not know now 

 if those last gentle sighs were those of the 

 wind in sorrow of its misdeeds, thus on 

 its death-bed repentant, or those of the 

 trees, themselves given a chance to sleep 

 at last after a forty-hour fight for their 

 lives. In the threshing and winnowing 

 of the woodland none but the physically 

 fit may survive. Oaks that have held 

 their last year's leaves lovingly on the 

 twig had to let them go like the veriest 

 chaff, and all twigs and limbs that have 

 been weakened. 



And as chaff and debris is thus pruned 

 from the forest, so those trees themselves 

 that are not physically fit for the struggle 

 for existence are weeded out. The eye 

 may not be able to pick these, but the gale 

 finds them. If the whelming pressure of 

 its steady onrush is not sufficient to bring 



