A DISCOURSE ON TREES 231 



fly's life. There! did I not tell you? Now go away, 

 all maiden crickets and grasshoppers! These fair 

 surfaces, so pure, so crystalline, so surely safe, have 

 a trout somewhere in them lying in wait for you! 



But what if one sits between both kinds of music, 

 leaves above and water below? What if birds are 

 among the leaves, sending out random calls, far- 

 piercing and sweet, as if they were lovers saying: 

 "My dear, are you there?" If you are half reclin- 

 ing upon a cushion of fresh new moss, that swells 

 up between the many-piled and twisted roots of a 

 huge beech tree, and if you have been there half 

 an hour without moving, and if you will still keep 

 motionless; you may see what they who only walk 

 through forests never see. . . . 



Thus do you stand, noble elms! Lifted up so 

 high are your topmost boughs, that no indolent 

 birds care to seek you; and only those of nimble 

 wings, and they with unwonted beat, that love 

 exertion, and aspire to sing where none sing higher. 

 Aspiration! so Heaven gives it pure as flames 

 to the noble bosom. But debased with passion and 

 selfishness it comes to be only Ambition! 



It was in the presence of this pasture-elm, which we 

 name the Queen, that we first felt to our very mar- 

 row, that we had indeed become owners of the soil. 

 It was with a feeling of awe that we looked up into 

 its face, and when I whispered to myself: "This is 

 mine," there was a shrinking as if there were 



