A DISCOURSE ON TREES 225 



sight of even a board or a log. A lumber yard is 

 better than nothing. The smell of wood, at least, 

 is there, the savory fragrance of resin, as sweet as 

 myrrh and frankincense ever was to a Jew. If 

 we can get nothing better, we love to read over 

 the names of trees in a catalogue. Many an hour 

 have we sat at night, when after exciting work, 

 we needed to be quieted, and read nurserymen's 

 catalogues, and London's Encyclopedias, and 

 Arboretum, until the smell of the woods exhaled 

 from the page, and the sound of leaves was in our 

 ears, and sylvan glades opened to our eyes that 

 would have made old Chaucer laugh and indite a 

 rapturous rush of lines. 



But how much more do we love trees in all their 

 summer pomp and plenitude. Not for their names 

 and affinities, not for their secret physiology and as 

 material for science, not for any reason that we can 

 give, except that when with them we are happy. 

 The eye is full, the ear is full, the whole sense and 

 all the tastes solaced, and our whole nature rejoices 

 with that various and full happiness which one has 

 when the soul is suspended in the midst of 

 Beethoven's symphonies and is lifted hither and 

 thither, as if blown by sweet sounds through the 

 airy passage of a full heavenly dream. 



Our first excursion in Lenox was one of saluta- 

 tion to our notable trees. We had a nervous anxiety 

 to see that the axe had not hewn, nor the lightning 



