TREES AND TREES. 95 
Trees occupy a prominent place in the literature of all 
‘ages, and especially in the pleasing myths handed down 
to us by Hessiod, Homer, Ovid and Virgil, and a partial 
acquaintance of this literature is absolutely necessary to 
the full enjoyment and understanding of most fanciful 
writings of our standard authors. 
One cannot but admire the reverence with which the 
ancient Greeks and Romans regarded the trees, endow- 
ing them as they did with attributes half human, half 
divine. They believed that many of them held en- 
shrined within their woody bark sylvan deities, whose 
lives were darkened when the tree was felled. These 
Dryads and Hamadryads animated every part of the 
trees from root to smallest spray of limb, investing them 
with life and beauty, feeling and intelligence. It was 
these bright creatures that shuddered and moaned in the 
storm or softly sighed in the gentle breeze. They shiv- 
ered and grew pale at the approach of cold, but became 
glad in the spring-time, and their joyous laughter rippled 
out in shining, fluttering leaves and bright blossoms. 
These woodland deities regarded with favor those who 
treated them kindly, but often meted out punishment to 
such as did them violence, as in cases of Rhecus and 
Erisicthon. The former, seeing an oak about to fall, 
propped it up and stayed it in its place, and the grateful 
nymph inhabiting it rewarded the generous deed by 
granting the fulfillment of any wish which he might 
make. Erisicthon was famous for “lifting up the axe 
against trees,’ and despoiling forests; he regarded 
neither the use nor the beauty of trees, and even felled 
