is perhaps no loftier association in Nature than 

 contact with the forest. It is the force of a tre- 

 mendous personality calm, inspiring, majestic. 

 Like the sea, it is not to be grasped in its entirety, 

 and the mind responds to it, as some giant sugar- 

 pine to the wind. These sequoias, which may 

 easily be from two to four thousand years old, 

 have seen men come and go as so many squirrels, 

 or as bubbles on the stream; they have outlived 

 empires, and may again. 



As the forest inspires in sensitive minds the 

 religious sentiment, so does it impose upon all 

 alike, silence. Self-effacement is the law. Wild 

 animals merge into their environment and have 

 acquired protective coloration through force of 

 necessity. The Indian has come to imitate them; 

 it has become second nature to him to move 

 stealthily, to stand and sit immovable for long at 

 a time, to speak little. To the woodsman, silence 

 is more congenial than speech ; his wood life has 

 made him alert; he has the habit of listening, and 

 talk interferes. 



Another influence is for sanity. It cannot fail 

 to communicate a little of its imperturbable calm, 

 that stable equilibrium of the granite ledge and 



