THE SOUL OF A TREE ii 



shelf Walt Whitman's Specimen Days in 

 America, and have opened the book, by 

 happy chance, at the following passage in 

 which he tells ''The Lesson of a Tree". He 

 says : *' I should not take either the biggest or 

 the most picturesque tree to illustrate it. Here 

 is one of my favourites now before me, a fine 

 yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps ninety 

 feet high, and four thick at the butt. How 

 strong, vital, enduring ! how dumbly eloquent ! 

 What suggestions of imperturbability and 

 being, as against the human trait of mere seem- 

 ing. Then the qualities, almost emotional, 

 palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree ; so innocent 

 and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says 

 nothing. How it rebukes, by its tough and 

 equable serenity all weathers, this gusty-tem- 

 pered little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at 

 a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather 

 half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of 

 dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. 

 But, if they don't, they do as well as most 

 speaking, writing, poetry, sermons — or rather 

 they do a great deal better. I should say 

 indeed that those old dryad reminiscences are 

 quite as true as any, and profounder than most 



