THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
235 
for the oxen, and some terebinthine or other medicinal 
quality ascended into their nostrils. Or is their elevated 
position intended merely as a symbol of the fact that the 
pastoral comes next in order to the sylvan or hunter life. 
The character of the logger’s admiration is betrayed 
by his very mode of expressing it. If he told all that 
was in his mind, he would say, it was so big that I cut 
it down and then a yoke of oxen could stand on its 
stump. He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more 
than the tree. Why, my dear sir, the tree might have 
stood on its own stump, and a great deal more comforta¬ 
bly and firmly than a yoke of oxen can, if you had not 
cut it down. What right have you to celebrate the vir¬ 
tues of the man you murdered ? 
The Anglo-American can indeed cut down, and grub 
up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and 
vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse 
with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the 
poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He 
ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print 
his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them. Be¬ 
fore he has learned his a b c in the beautiful but mystic 
lore of the wilderness rrhich Spenser and Dante had just 
begun to read, he cuts it dowrn, coins a pine-tree shilling, 
(as if to signify the pine’s value to him,) puts up a 
Restrict school-house, and introduces Webster’s spelling- 
book. 
Below the last dam, the river being swift and shallow, 
though broad enough, we two walked about half a mile 
to lighten the canoe. I made it a rule to carry my knap¬ 
sack when I walked, and also to keep it tied to a cross¬ 
bar when in the canoe, that it might be found with the 
canoe if we should upset. 
