ETHICS OF THE FOREST 



By ALEXANDRE ERIXON 



"By day or by night, summer or winter, beneath the trees the heart feels nearer lo that depth 

 of life which the far sky means. The rest of spirit, found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes 

 there because the distance seems within touch of thought," Jefferies. 



NATURE, with its spirit of serenity pages as that of this, even the trees 



and gentle teachings, is truly per- under which we played as children will 



ceived by only a few in the busy come back with reverent memories if 



rush of our prosaic time ; and yet, if we see them shading the same plot of 



we will only stop to consider, we shall grass, after many years, 



find that the phase here presented is But there are also pleasures and 



not the one of least value. benefits which are ours to enjoy to- 



"To most of us," says Lubbock, day; though often they are so common 



"Nature when sombre, or even gloomy, as to pass unheeded. The comfort of 



is soothing and consoling; when bright shade in the warmth of summer, be- 



and beautiful, not only raises the spirit, neath a canopy of leaves is one of the 



but inspires and elevates the whole free gifts of the forest. Again, there 



being." is the shelter which it yields in a storm. 



No wonder that in ancient times the And not least, the fresh fragrance of 

 raiment of the fields and hillsides be- its purified air, where with each breath 

 came an object of reverence, and that we gain a lengthened lease of life, and 

 the forests were held in religious wor- the mind is revived as well as the body, 

 ship. With a roof of leaves, a carpet Lastly, in this class, we may also add 

 of moss and flowers, the stillness, and that of wealth, following as a gift of 

 the softened light of the shady arcades, the forest, of which Sir John Lubbock 

 what a realm we have for the fairies gives us an example when speaking of 

 of old mythology ! But though our age "The region of the Landes, which fifty 

 can see only as visions of the past, there years ago was one of the poorest and 

 are yet monarchs of the forest that be- most miserable in France, but has now 

 come enveloped with their own chap- been made one of the most prosperous, 

 ters of historic events, which give them owing to the planting of pines. The 

 an added charm even to the less poetic increased value is estimated at no less 

 observer. In our own country these than 1,000,000,000 francs. Where there 

 landmarks may yet be few, but if were fifty years ago only a few thou- 

 not neglected they will go down sand poor and unhealthy shepherds 

 into the annals of posterity like "The whose flocks pastured on the scanty 

 Soma Cypress of Lombardy, which herbage, there are now sawmills, char- 

 is 1 20 feet high and twenty-three coal kilns and turpentine works, inter- 

 in circumference, and is calculated spersed with thriving villages and fertile 

 to go back forty years before the agricultural lands." 

 birth of Christ. Francis the First is "Speak to the earth and it shall teach 

 said to have driven his sword into it thee," says Job. And truly, to those 

 in despair after the battle of Padua, who study Nature, it will also have its 

 and Napoleon altered his road over the lesson. Of this Charles C. Abbott 

 Simplon so as to spare it." And though brings forth a very pretty illustration 

 their history may not have so many when speaking of a tree. "Go to it in 



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