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THE MAINE WOODS. 
how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its ever¬ 
green arms to the light, — to see its perfect success; but 
most are content to behold it in the shape of many 
broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true 
success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, 
and to be made into boards and houses is no more its 
true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to 
be cut down and made into manure. There is a higher 
law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A 
pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a 
dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discov¬ 
ered only some of the values of whalebone and whale 
oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale ? 
Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to 
have “ seen the elephant” ? These are petty and acci¬ 
dental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in 
order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for 
everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. 
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose 
and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will 
rather preserve its life than destroy it. 
Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover 
of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its 
nature best ? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he 
who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will 
fable to have been changed into a pine at last ? No! 
no! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use of 
the pine, — who does not fondle it with an axe, nor 
tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane, -— who 
knows whether its heart is false without cutting into it, 
— who has not bought the stum page of the township on 
which it stands. All the pines shudder and heave a sigh 
when that man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the 
