48 FAMILIAR TREES 



pretensions. As I rode along the pleasant way, watching eagerly 

 for the object of my journey, the rounded tops of the Elms arose 

 from time to time at the roadside. Wherever one looked taller and 

 fuller than the rest I asked myself — ' Is this it ? ' But as I drew 

 nearer they grew smaller — or it proved, perhaps, that two standing 

 in a line had looked like one, and so deceived me. At last, all at 

 once, when I was not thinking of it — I declare it makes my flesh 

 creep when I think of it now — all at once I saw a great green cloud 

 .swelling in the horizon, so vast, so symmetrical, of such Olympian 

 majesty and imperial supremacy among the lesser forest growths, 

 that my heart stopped short, then jumped at my ribs as a hunter 

 springs at a five-barred gate, and I felt all through ine, without need 

 of uttering the words, ' This is it ! ' . . . What makes a first- 

 class Elm? Why, size in the first place, and chiefly. Anything 

 over twenty feet of clear girth, five feet above the ground, and with 

 a spread of branches a hundred feet across, may claim that title, 

 according to my scale. . . . Elms of the second class, generally 

 ranging from fourteen to eighteen feet, are comparatively common. 

 . . . The American Elm is tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, and 

 drooping as if from languor. The English Elm is compact, robust, 

 holds its branches up, and carries its leaves for weeks longer than 

 our own native tree. Is this typical of the creative force on the 

 two sides of the ocean, or not ? " 



