JANUARY 7 



guarded by these lordly conifers, and the 

 simplest farmhouse loses all vulgarity or sor- 

 didness when it is sheltered by them. A home 

 so adorned and comforted reminds one of a 

 beautiful woman robed in costly furs, who 

 does not defy cold by her wrappings, because 

 they have rendered her unconscious that cold 

 exists, and who diffuses a sense of warmth and 

 opulence by her presence. The pioneer of the 

 older states planted these trees by the tens 

 of thousands, and more than one American 

 family points with more pride to the ancestral 

 pines than to the cross which was the guerdon- 

 right of a crusader on the unused coat-of-arms 

 which lies, half-forgotten, in the desk in the 

 old farmhouse under the sighing trees. All 

 pines are noble, but the tree of which Emerson 

 said unforgetable things was assuredly that 

 of which the masts of ships are made, and if 

 the fable of Daphne has in it that saving grace 

 of truth which lies deep in the heart of all folk- 

 tales, and if every human soul has its counter- 

 part in the soul of some lifeful green thing, 

 then must the pure and austere spirits of the 

 men and women who have made our republic 

 look out on us from between the pine boughs 



