Central Park 
never that of magnificent glooms and storms ; the arena 
is too limited for the wilder, more rugged views that so 
invigorate the soul; and the roughness and artless negli- 
gence of the forest, mountain, and vale, the far horizon 
and the wind-swept lake, afford a range of pleasures 
never found where the scene comprises only a multi- 
tude of small perfections. 
In nature’s vastness human touch can neither mend 
nor mar her sublime effects. How magnificent is a great 
forest, how profound its eternal repose! One leaves the 
din of human strife behind in entering its almost sacred 
precincts, a sort of temple not made with hands. In 
what restful, perfect silence works that immense machin- 
ery of life! Tons of water coursing incessantly upward 
through all the trunks to their very tips, expansion in 
billions of twigs and leaves, consolidation of wood-fibre 
every instant, swelling of every bough and bole, the 
production of an immeasurable mass of flower and fruit, 
chemical action on the mightiest scale, by a forest energy 
as frictionless, inaudible, and irresistible as that which 
drives the planets in their orbits. Multiply the vital 
force of one such forest by the thousands that cover all 
the mountain slopes and plains, and how stupendous 
nature’s enginery appears ! 
* 
May not our sympathy with trees spring partly from 
the fact that they, more than other forms of vegetation, 
seem linked with us in a common mortality? Youth, 
manhood vigor, old age, and decay are theirs as ours: 
certainly with no other object in nature below the grade 
45 
