i62 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



movement of trees in the wind. And as one 

 watches, one notes how they differ in move- 

 ment. Young trees, of course, seem to have 

 a much rougher time of it than older ones ; 

 their whole frame is bent hither and thither. 

 They remind us of the little sailing-boats 

 whose mast-heads stoop so near to the sea that 

 we wonder if they will ever right themselves 

 again. Trees of older growth are not to be thus 

 disturbed. They will let their smaller branches 

 yield to the wind ; they may even bend a little 

 in their main stems ; but this is all. They are 

 like great sailing-ships that stand up against 

 the breeze ; some of them may be even likened 

 to the modern ocean liners, upon which the 

 wind has little or no effect. But one and all 

 move. Richard Jefferies waxes almost angry 

 with the church-towers and spires that he sees 

 through the trees, partly because of their want 

 of proportion, partly because of their stiff 

 immobility. There is no such stiffness about 

 even the stoutest tree. 



Sturdiest of resisters of the wind is the oak, 

 which only seems to yield sufficiently to show 

 how little it will yield. We might almost think 

 it contemptuously resentful of the effort of the 



