Here, indeed, high up in the air
is the real life of the forest. Everything seems to climb, to the light.
The quadrupeds climb, birds climb, reptiles climb, and the variety of
climbing plants is far greater than anything to which we are accustomed.
Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling
would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day
when I am alone in a wood one of the trees were to speak to me. Even by
day there is something mysterious in a forest, and this is much more the
case at night.
With wood, water seems to be naturally associated. Without water no
landscape is complete, while overhead the clouds add beauty to the heavens
themselves. The spring and the rivulet, the brook, the river, and the
lake, seem to give life to Nature, and were indeed regarded by our
ancestors as living entities themselves. Water is beautiful in the morning
mist, in the broad lake, in the glancing stream or the river pool, in the
wide ocean, beautiful in all its varied moods.
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