DECEMBER 289 



birch, like the pure goddess that she is, cares 

 so little for her raiment that we can always 

 have glimpses of the warm loveliness of her 

 satin skin and the soft tremblings of her breath. 

 Springing in clusters from old roots, white 

 and slender, she carries us back to the old, old 

 days and the old free forest life as no other 

 tree can do, and we see her giving herself to 

 the lost builder who formed from it the one 

 perfect achievement of man the canoe that 

 lay on the breast of forgotten waters 



" Like a yellow leaf in autumn 

 Like a yellow water-lily." 



Beech and birch the one holding the pallid 

 sunshine in her unfallen leaves, the other 

 white and swaying are the high lights of the 

 winter-garden picture, which require other 

 senses than were needed when leaves were 

 green. 



If I could have choice of but one thing to 

 look at in December, it should be a hemlock- 

 tree. It should have grown in a space large 

 enough to let it do what it liked with its 

 boughs ; and toward the south there should 

 be a slope beneath it, where some of the 



