THE MINISTRY OF TREES 



stands for strength, and the delicate white 

 birch for feminine fragility. The quaking 

 aspen reminds us of the instability of cer- 

 tain men and women, and the somber pine 

 of the cold serenity of others. 



The poet or painter may go further, — 

 nay, is even certain to go further, — and is 

 sure to find in trees something quite beyond 

 the suggestion of human character,— ^some 

 sjnnbolism of the divine mysteries. Ruskin, 

 who speaks often of trees, nearly always rises 

 to this plane, as when he says in the Ele- 

 ments of Drawing, "As you draw trees 

 more and more in their various states of 

 health and hardship, you will be every day 

 struck by the beauty of the types they 

 present of the truths most essential for 

 mankind to know, and you will see that 

 this vegetation of the earth, which is neces- 

 sary to our life, first, as purifying the air 

 for us and then as food, and just as neces- 

 sary to our joy in all places of the earth, — 

 what these trees and leaves, I say, are 

 meant to teach us as we contemplate them, 

 and read or hear their lovely language, 

 written or spoken for us, not in frightful, 

 black letters, nor in dull sentences, but in 

 fair, green, and shadowy shapes of waving 



37 



