160 THE ASH-TREE. 



To English landscape the ash gives something of 

 the character which in warm countries is supplied 

 by the Acacia. This comes of its feathered leaves. 

 The sunbeams filter perfectly through the foliage, 

 and thus we receive at all times that agreeable 

 sense of lightness and transparency which results 

 from the sky being seen through a net- work of twig 

 and verdure. In its stature, too, the ash commends 

 itself, well-grown individuals rising to the height of 

 from eighty to a hundred feet. It has been said, 

 that while we instinctively most love that which is 

 little, admiration fastens chiefly upon the great ; I 

 think it will prove that we find our highest pleasure, 

 after all, in contemplating that which strikes us 

 more particularly as lofty, of course with the idea 

 of symmetry combined. We give this meed of 

 approval, as the spontaneous act of the soul, to 

 the lily, to the aspiring palm, to the woman who 

 rises higher than her companions. Not that in so 

 doing we depreciate and disesteem the less, but that 

 the tall takes the firmest and deepest hold. It is a 

 great point to be always invited, by the stature of 

 what surrounds us, to look upwards ; or at all events, 

 not to have our eyes habitually below the line of 

 straight seeing. Our physical nature and organiza- 

 tion are the better for such upward-looking ; and a 

 certain quiet satisfaction of spirit, felt, though inde- 

 finable, flows therefrom as a beautiful corollary. I 

 have often thought that it may have pleased God to 



