60 THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 



bought it from the arboretum when it was four 

 years old, and the florist said : "You will always 

 find delight in this tree." And so it has proved. 

 I never see it in its baptism of sunlight but it 

 pleases beyond words. I awake in the night 

 and oft hear the winds soughing through its 

 branches, and I can tell the weather, can see the 

 changing light and feel its throbs and sense the 

 joy it has in its swing, lullabying the wee nests 

 and tiny indwellers. In mist or gentle rain it 

 envelopes itself with an airy robe of singular 

 beauty. It is a very happy tree, and fills its 

 corner admirably. 



I seemed to have from the first a conscious 

 sense of the beautiful. I could not define it. 

 I felt it and that was highest knowledge. I 

 was keenly susceptible to rich emotions and 

 ecstasies and tears. A wild flower would ex- 

 cite me, bird song, visions of the deep blue sky 

 so infinitely far off, sunsets and sunrises. Fine 

 prospects would stir me, often I climbed the 

 house and barn and high hills on purpose to 

 look off. I wanted a wider world to live in 

 and feel in, I would push the horizon farther 

 back. It was the poetic spirit. The poet feels 

 and writes his full pages. The painter feels 

 and creates his beautiful pictures. So thou- 

 sands feel and exult. It is all alike and akin. 



