XI. 



THE GNARLED PINE-TREE. 



MORE than once in these papers I have 

 mentioned, as I passed, the wind-swept and 

 weather-beaten Scotch fir on which the 

 night-jar perches, and which forms such a 

 conspicuous object in the wide moorland 

 view from our drawing-room windows. I 

 love that Scotch fir, for its very irregularity 

 and rude wildness of growth ; a Carlyle 

 among trees, it seems to me to breathe forth 

 the essential spirit of these bold free up- 

 lands. Not that any one would call it 

 beautiful who has framed his ideas of beauty 

 on the neatness and trimness of park-like 

 English scenery ; it has nothing in common 

 with the well -grown and low -feathering 



81 G 



