46 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



other woods. The seasons themselves make no im- 

 pression upon it, for it is dressed in perennial green, 

 <ind it retains its shade alike in summer's heat and 

 winter's desolation. It prevents all undergrowth ; no 

 brambles dare to stretch their long, trailing, thorny 

 arms like the feelers of some creature of prey within 

 its guarded enclosure. No wild roses can open their 

 trembling petals white with fear or crimson with blushes, 

 in its solemn sanctuary. No hazel-bush will drop 

 there its ringlets of smoking catkins in spring, or its 

 ruddy clusters of nuts in autumn. No mimic sunshine 

 of primrose tufts, no pale star-beams of anemone or 

 sorrel will light up its gloom. No glimpses of blue sky 

 are let into it by hyacinths, or blue-bells, or violets. 

 To all the lowly plants that find refuge in other woods, 

 and in turn adorn and beautify their hosts, the pine 

 trees in their dignified independence refuse admission. 

 No song of bird or hum of insect is heard beneath 

 their boughs. And on the ground below, strewn deep 

 with a carpet of brown needles and emptied cones that 

 have silently dropped in the course of long years from 

 overhead, and are slow to decay, only a few yellow 

 toad-stools and one or two splendid scarlet mushrooms 

 make up for the painful dearth of vegetation. It seems 

 as if the balsamic breath of the pines, which is so 

 wholesome to human life preventing all fevers and 

 infectious diseases were as deadly as the upas shade 

 to other forms of life. 



How widely different is it with the oak ! This of all 

 trees of all living things is the most hospitable ; and 



