242 East and West 
a veteran nonconformist to the traditions of 
its race, standing alone, extending its gaunt 
arms in the blue, a picture of rude and prime- 
val strength, of lonely and desolate grandeur. 
Sequoias owe much of the impression they 
create to the immense bulk of the trunk and 
to the distance to the lowest limbs. It is an 
impression of columns—vast, Egyptian, mas- 
sive. This columnar beauty which over- 
comes by the sense of mass, they share with 
no other tree, unless it be the smaller crypto- 
meria of Japan. For that peculiarly lofty and 
splendid environment, that magnificent ar- 
boreal person of the sequoia, you must go to 
California, for nowhere else is it known. 
How different are the impressions accorded 
by hardwoods and what a beautiful thing is 
the tree—that to so many means only lumber 
and firewood. Maples and birch and elm 
reflect the spirit of the North and of the 
seasons. They contain in themselves spring 
and autumn and seem to express subtle 
moods that never come to the Conifers. That 
matchless colour which transfigures the scarlet 
oak and the sugar maple is unknown to West- 
ern trees. The live oak slips from one season 
to another with but little apparent change. 
It puts out its leaves as do the pines with no 
