i6 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



the good of a tree, a branch must come out, to 

 give the new wood a chance ; or to let another 

 tree, that is being injured by a more strongly- 

 growing neighbour, have more room ; and my 

 heart sinks whenever I think that some day I 

 may have to leave these humble friends of mine 

 to the care or the neglect of others. Before I 

 came among them others cared for them or 

 lived indifferent to them. Here, though I 

 have called them humble, they seem, in more 

 than their height, to rise above me. By their 

 silent endurance, by their mere length of years, 

 by their naturalness, they soothe and strengthen. 

 Though the tree have not a soul, it is to me as 

 if it had. 



In a later chapter we shall have much to say 

 about the various kinds of trees. Botanists 

 divide them into several orders, and there are 

 varying species within the orders. Not only 

 this, but individual trees have their own char- 

 acter. We may say simply that this is an oak, 

 that a beech, and that an elm ; as we distinguish 

 Englishman, Frenchman and German. But 

 the tree lover goes further than this ; as we do 

 also with our fellows when we know them inti- 

 mately. Not every oak has just the same ap- 



