THE GNARLED PINE-TREE. , 



every other tree on our open moor, I notice 

 you are savagely blown from the south- 

 west ; for the south-west wind here is by 

 far our most violent and dangerous enemy, 

 blowing great guns at times up the narrow 

 funnel-shaped valleys, and so much more 

 to be dreaded than the bitter north-east, 

 which is elsewhere so inhospitable. " Blown 

 from the south-west," we say as a matter of 

 course in our bald human language ; and so 

 indeed it seems. I suppose most casual 

 spectators who look upon you now really 

 believe it is the direct blowing of the wind 

 that so distorts and twists you. You and I 

 know better. We know that each spring, 

 as the sap rises in your veins, you put forth 

 afresh lush green sprouts symmetrically from 

 the buds at your growing points ; and that 

 if these sprouts were permitted to develop 

 equally and evenly in every direction, you 

 would have grown from the first as normally 

 and formally as a spruce-fir or a puzzle- 

 monkey. But not for us are such joys. 



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