A Window in Arcady 
Among all the trees of our northern woods, there is no 
family so ancient as that of the pines. Fellow-dwellers 
with the great lycopods and sigillarias and catamites, now 
long extinct, but which crowded the miasmal swamps of 
the Carboniferous Era before coal was laid or man created, 
the pines serve to link us with earth’s infancy—with old 
chaos and the reign of night—with things primal and 
fundamental. Down all these ages they have come, pre¬ 
serving in their character the traits of that far-off period 
when life’s method was more direct than now; of which 
it may be part of their mission to remind us. The up¬ 
right shaft of the trunk pointing without halt or division 
of purpose heavenward; the straightforward swing of the 
branches outward on every side free from crookedness; the 
simple tufted leaves, which return alike to winter’s blasts 
and summer zephyrs the soft answer of fragrance and of 
music—these inheritances of the pine savor of a time be¬ 
fore sin and guile had entered into the world, and we may 
well heed their lesson. 
With the passing of the months most trees change their 
foliage, a new mood for each season, but the pines are al¬ 
ways the same. Amid the stress and glare of the high¬ 
road and the market-place, we sometimes remember fondly 
the balsamic odors, the restful twilight and the silence 
of the pine forest aisles as we knew them long ago, and 
we are sure should we return to them, at whatever season, 
we should find all as we had left it. So, in an unstable 
world, the pine stands for the steadfast nature—the de¬ 
pendable one that never disappoints. 
[40] 
