4 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



in Salisbury's dizzy height of tower and spire. 

 Staffordshire loves ''the Three Sisters of the 

 Vale ". Durham sees a type of North-country 

 strength in the towers that look down upon the 

 Wear, and far over the country through which 

 the river has deeply cut its channel. Yet, 

 again, these are but inanimate things. They 

 come in one sense nearer to us than the hills, 

 because man has made them. Almost legiti- 

 mately we may speak of their soul ; for some- 

 thing of the soul of man has entered into them. 

 They seem well-nigh organic, nervous, in their 

 structure. We could almost ask life for them, 

 as did Pygmalion for the image he had made. 

 Yet though they have individuality, and beauty, 

 and strength, they have not life. But the trees 

 have all that hill and tower have ; and they 

 have life as well. Do we read something of 

 our soul into the hills ; and think that we also 

 read there something of the spirit of the Over- 

 Soul? Do we find tower and spire that we 

 have made to be in their measure akin to us? 

 And is there no sense in which we can rightly 

 speak of the soul of the tree ? 



We have ruled out animism, the belief that 

 an individual spirit informs each living thing. 



