[ 52 : 

 TREES REFLECTED IN THE RIVER 



June 15, 1840. I stood by the river to-day consid- 

 ering the forms of the elms reflected in the water. 

 For every oak and birch, too, growing on the hill- 

 top, as well as for elms and willows, there is a grace- 

 ful ethereal tree making down from the roots, as it 

 were the original idea of the tree, and sometimes 

 Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot 

 and makes it visible. Anxious Nature sometimes re- 

 flects from pools and puddles the objects which our 

 grovelling senses may fail to see relieved against the 

 sky with the pure ether for background. 



It would be well if we saw ourselves as in perspec- 

 tive always, impressed with distinct outline on the 

 sky, side by side with the shrubs on the river's brim. 

 So let our life stand to heaven as some fair, sunlit 

 tree against the western horizon, and by sunrise be 

 planted on some eastern hill to glisten in the first 

 rays of the dawn. 



Journal, i, 139, 140. 



Wherever the trees and skies are reflected, there 

 is more than Atlantic depth, and no danger of fancy 

 running aground. We notice that it required a sep- 

 arate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted 

 vision, to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to 

 see the river bottom merely; and so there are mani- 

 fold visions in the direction of every object, and even 



