THE SOUL OF A TREE 5 



But some portion of the power we call life, 

 which culminates, within the limits of our ex- 

 perience, in human nature, moves in the tree, 

 and determines, in ways we can observe but 

 not explain, what, to use the simple, biblical 

 word, its kind shall be. I turn my head away 

 from the page before me to look at a tree, and 

 to wonder at the mystery of its being, and, 

 almost more, at the arrest of its being below 

 such consciousness as we must think the higher 

 forms of animal life, at least, to possess. ''In 

 the beginning God created " — more than this : 

 always, God, using the word, if the reader 

 will have it so, in the broadest, vaguest sense, 

 creates, brings forth, the living things, and 

 determines, by laws we dimly trace, the char- 

 acter and limits of their being. 

 Mrs. Browning wrote : — 



A tree's mere firewood, unless humanised, — 

 Which well the Greeks knew when they stirred its bark 

 With close-pressed bosoms of subsiding nymphs, 

 And made the forest-rivers garrulous 

 With babble of gods. 



About the nymphs we shall have something 

 to say hereafter. It has to be said now that a 

 tree is not mere firewood unless humanised; 



