114 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



for refreshment, and for rest. Thus doth natural scenery 

 with its ever varying associations " unadorned " by profane 

 human hands, leave freest play to refined edenic pleasures, 

 "where no vile surfeit reigns," and no weariness of wealthy 

 display obtrudes, where the ostensible and artificial humbly 

 acknowledge their peerless real. But would any one, in this 

 conceited age, have the audacity to imagine a real philos- 

 opher (truly loving wisdom, rather) soliloquizing, " This 

 natural object, and that, or those scenes combined, impress 

 all variously, and forever will, as now, along the rolling 

 ages, effigies of the Infinite ; hence, indefinite, a very small part 

 of His works, the views of passing human ephemera, the least 

 of all His wonders." But soon the balmy days supervene, 

 silently signaled on forest foliage, as stars of honor on the 

 breast of worthy merit, when the year, and all his types, 

 draw nigh unto their quiet close; then a saddening retro- 

 spective repose comes down in floods of yellow light em- 

 bosoming wild and lonely wood, languid fields of harvested 

 plenty, serener mountain tops, more tranquil vales of fra- 

 grance, softer winds fan our cheeks, and expiring zephyrs 

 sigh faintly seolian songs, echoing the firmament of the pine 

 and the fir from on high, with the " still small voice of 

 silence," wherein celestials whisper unto the soul, saying to 

 the all-attentive ear, " Yonder is a brighter harvest in the 

 skies ;" earthly flowers may fade away, gay leaves fall lightly 

 down, or as bright banners of a vanquished host, lie scat- 

 tered and prone along all paths of hasty flight. But already 

 the buds of promise appear beside the fruited fork, between 

 the final two parting twigs of the Great Flowering Cornel — 

 another life begun, for death is but the beneficent beginning 

 of a new resurrection. 



" Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 

 And the grave is not its goal ; 

 Dust thou art, to dust returneth, 

 Was not spoken of the soul." 



The Great Flowering Dogwood of the Pacific, like its 

 kindred of the Atlantic, is also of slow growth ; wood hard 

 and heavy, texture close and color dark, takes a fine polish, 

 called native Boxtree, the timber being often substituted for 

 boxwood for joiners' tools, handles, and turnery generally ; 

 makes elegant mauls and mallets, is beautifully ornamental 

 when well selected, best near the base, and with instep- 

 root furnishes good knees, similar to cedar, pine, oak, and 

 yew, good boxes for gudgeons, and cogs for wheels; young, 

 straight stems, hoops, etc.; and in the "good old primitive 

 times," long gone by, when female, from queen to peasant, 

 and the "old folks at home" were wont to put forth the hand 

 unto the distaff, the orderly disposed branches whirling the 



