INTENSITY OF LIFE 61 



taining the monarch. Other cells take in necessary 

 food from the air. Others build up the trunk and 

 its protective bark. Others, and most important 

 of all, go to make up the flowers of the tree and the 

 organs of reproduction which enable the tree to 

 propagate its kind. 



All this activity of the separate cells and com- 

 binations of cells is taking place. And in addition 

 there is that activity of them all in their together- 

 ness, that activity which keeps the cells together, 

 and which if relaxed for a moment would mean that 

 the cells would all collapse as the grains of dust in 

 an eddying dust-devil at a street corner collapse 

 once the gust of wind which stirred them and keeps 

 them together drops away. What must be the 

 intensity of life required to develop the tree from 

 the seed and to rear that giant straight up from the 

 level soil 200 feet into the air and maintain it there 

 two hundred years, we can only imagine ; for to 

 outward appearance the tree is quite impassive. It 

 does not move a muscle of its face to reveal the 

 intensity of life within. 



The tree is characteristic of every living thing. 

 Every plant and every animal, however seemingly 

 sluggish, is working to fulfil its life, to nourish itself, 

 to reproduce its kind. 



Now, the amount of air and sunshine for plants 

 may be practically unlimited, but air and sunshine 

 are not all that plants require. They want soil and 

 moisture as well. And the standing-room for 

 plants is strictly limited. The forest stretches away 

 up to the snows ; but there it stops. Necessarily, 



