TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 297 



stage in the progress of a vast evolution. We 

 see in them the result of an ever-continuing 

 fiat, which the biblical story of Genesis misinter- 

 prets only, if at all, by putting back into the 

 past: **And God said, Let the earth bring 

 forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the 

 fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose 

 seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so. 

 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb 

 yielding seed after his kind : and God saw that 

 it was good." 



It was autumn when I began to write this 

 book, and now that I reach the end of it, spring 

 is here again ; the young leaves are unfolding ; 

 the earliest fruit-blossom is braving the east 

 wind ; soon the later blossom will break out in 

 all its beauty. The fiat of God still goes forth. 

 I have been out to ask the trees what last word 

 I ought to say. And it is simply this : that if 

 this book should fall into the hands of some, 

 be they few or many, who, through reading it, 

 shall come to live more with the trees, and to 

 love them better than hitherto they have done, 

 then it will not be in vain that another has been 

 added to the innumerable host of books. 



