TREE FORMS AND EXPRESSIONS 185 



find security in bending to the gale, like the slender 

 herbs in the meadow. 



Trees are generally classed as landscape orna- 

 ments, according to their general outlines. "Some 

 trees ascend vertically," says St. Pierre, "and hav- 

 ing arrived at a certain height, in an air perfectly 

 unobstructed, fork off in various tiers, and send out 

 their branches horizontally, like an apple-tree; or 

 incline them toward the earth, like a fir; or hollow 

 them in the form of a cup, like the sassafras ; or round 

 them into the shape of a mushroom, like the pine; 

 or straighten them into a pyramid, like the poplar; 

 or roll them as wool upon the distaff, like the cypress; 

 or suffer them to float at the discretion of the winds, 

 like the birch." These are the normal varieties 

 in the shape of trees. Others may be termed acci- 

 dental, like those of the tall and imperfectly devel- 

 oped trees, which have been cramped by growing 

 in dense assemblages, and of the pollards that have 

 issued from the stumps and roots of other trees. 



Trees are generally wanting in that kind of beauty 

 which we admire in a vase, or an elegant piece of 

 furniture. They have more of those qualities 

 we look for in a picture and in the ruder works of 

 architecture. Nature is neither geometrical nor 

 precise in her delineations. She betrays a design 

 in all her works, but never casts two objects in the 

 same mold. She does not paint by formulas, 

 nor build by square and compass, nor plant by a 



