FOREST. 191 



pleasant. The elms gather together, rubbing their 

 branches in the gale till the bark is worn off and the 

 boughs die; the shadow is deep under them, and 

 moist, favourable to rank grass and coarse mushrooms. 

 Beneath the ashes, after the first frost, the air is 

 full of the bitterness of their blackened leaves, which 

 have all come down at once. By the beeches there 

 is little underwood, and the hollows are filled ankle- 

 deep with their leaves. From the pines comes a 

 fragrant odour, and thus the character of each group 

 dominates the surrounding ground. The shade is 

 too much for many flowers, which prefer the nooks 

 of hedgerows. If there is no scope for the use of 

 "express" rifles, this southern forest really is a 

 forest and not an open hillside. It is a forest of 

 trees, and there are no woodlands so beautiful and 

 enjoyable as these, where it is possible to be lost 

 a while without fear of serious consequences; where 

 you can walk without stepping up to the waist in a 

 decayed tree-trunk, or floundering in a bog; where 

 neither venomous snake nor torturing mosquito causes 

 constant apprehensions and constant irritation. To 

 the eye there is nothing but beauty ; to the imagina- 

 tion pleasant pageants of old time ; to the ear the 

 soothing cadence of the leaves as the gentle breeze 

 goes over. The beeches rear their Gothic architecture ; 

 the oaks are planted firm like castles, unassailable. 

 Quick squirrels climb and dart hither and thither, 

 deer cross the distant glade, and, occasionally, a 

 hawk passes like thought. 



The something that may be in the shadow or the 

 thicket, the vain, pleasant chase that beckons us on, 



