Good Families 241 
dividual as any trees, while the white pine 
has the most distinguished personality. An 
old white pine, like a venerable oak or sugar 
maple, is something in the landscape. The 
rough bark coated with blue-green parmelias, 
the peculiarities of needle and cone, play 
the same part as the features and lines of a 
face. Impressions derived from hemlock and 
from spruce are from masses rather than 
from individuals—twilight impressions of dim 
interiors in temples not made with hands. 
How fair and charming is the tamarack, ar- 
rayed in the pale green verdure of early 
spring, as it stands in the mist at the edge 
of the ponds. How exquisitely vernal it is, 
and how marvellously it accords with its 
setting, as if designed by an artist for that 
very end. Equally well the sombre red 
cedar accords with dts environment— with 
the bare ledges, the massive and antique 
boulders blotched with lichens, the juniper 
and the blueberry bushes, and the clumps of 
bayberry,—an integral part of the whole. 
Of the Western members of the family the 
sugar pine of the Sierras has the most pro- 
nounced personality—expressive of amplitude 
and majesty: not symmetrical, not conven- 
tional like the firs, but a rugged individualist, 
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