102 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
as a sacrilege, and “thanked “God that these choppers 
were not able to cut down the clouds.” In speaking of 
the destruction of the pine forests, he says: “ Strange 
that so few men ever come to the woods to see how the 
pine lives and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the 
light to see its living success. Most men are content to 
see the broad boards and sticks of timber brought to 
market, deeming that the tree’s success; but a dead pine 
cut down is no more a pine than a dead carcass is a man. 
It is not the lumberman, who stands nearest the tree, 
understands it best. and loves it most; it is not he who 
has bought the stumpage on which it stands, and who 
must cut into it to find if its heart be sound. All the 
trees shudder when that man steps on the forest floor. 
No, no; it is the poet who makes the truest use of the 
tree; he does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it 
with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane; he loves it as he 
does his living friends and lets it stand. It is the living. 
spirit of the tree with which I sympathize. It may be 
as immortal as I am, and perchance will go to as high a 
heaven, there to tower above me still.” 
Perhaps no naturalist was more highly endowed 
with the poetic imagination or held closer communion 
with the living spirit of nature than Wilson Flagg. By 
streams and rocks, in fields and woods, the exquisite 
unseen beings, seen only by the mind’s eye of the poet, 
kept him delightful company. Concerning one of his 
favorite resorts, a wild sequestered nook not yet spoiled 
by art, he says: “Every one who visited it felt inspired 
with a mysterious sense of cheerfulness and pensive 
