grove of orange trees in full fruit; while the more we examine the more we find to admire—all perfectly and exquisitely finished "usque ad ungues," perfect inside and outside, for Nature
Does in the pomegranate close,
Jewels more rare than Ormus shows.[1]
In winter the woods are comparatively bare and lifeless, even the brambles and woodbine, which straggle over the tangle of underwood, being almost leafless. Still, even then they have a beauty and interest of their own: the mossy boles of the trees, the delicate tracery of the branches, which can hardly be appreciated when they are covered with leaves, and under foot the beds of fallen leaves; while the evergreens seem brighter than in summer, the ruddy stems and rich green foliage of the Scotch pines and the dark spires of the firs seeming to acquire fresh beauty.
"The woods are bare and lifeless."
Again, in winter, though no doubt the living tenants of the woods are much less numerous, many of our birds being then far away in the dense African forests, on the other hand those which remain are much more easily visible. We can follow the birds from tree to tree and the squirrel from bough to bough.
It requires little imagination to regard trees as conscious beings; indeed, it is almost an effort not to do so.
"The various action of trees," says Ruskin, "rooting themselves in inhospitable rocks, stooping to look into ravines, hiding from the search of glacier winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine, crowding down together to drink at sweetest streams, climbing hand in hand among the difficult slopes, opening in sudden dances among the mossy knolls, gathering into companies at rest among the fragrant fields, gliding in grave procession over the heavenward ridges—nothing of this can be conceived among the unvexed and unvaried felicities of the lowland forest; while to all these direct sources of greater beauty are added, first the power of redundance—the mere quantity of foliage visible in the folds and on the promontories of a
- ↑ Marsell.
