manifest
preeminence in the character of trees. It is possible among plains, in
the species of trees which properly belong to them, the poplars of
Amiens, for instance, to obtain a serene simplicity of grace, which, as
I said, is a better help to the study of gracefulness, as such, than any
of the wilder groupings of the hills; so also, there are certain
conditions of symmetrical luxuriance developed in the park and avenue,
rarely rivalled in their way among mountains; and yet the mountain
superiority in foliage is, on the whole, nearly as complete as it is in
water; for exactly as there are some expressions in the broad reaches of
a navigable lowland river, such as the Loire or Thames, not, in their
way, to be matched among the rock rivers, and yet for all that a
lowlander cannot be said to have truly seen the element of water at all;
so even in his richest parks and avenues he cannot be said to have truly
seen trees. For the resources of trees are not developed until they have
difficulty to contend with; neither their tenderness of brotherly love
and harmony, till they are forced to choose their ways of various life
where there is contracted room for them, talking to each other with
their restrained branches. The various action of trees 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 round
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
single Alp being greater than that of an entire lowland landscape
(unless a view from some cathedral tower); and to this charm of
redundance, that of clearer _visibility_,--tree after tree being
constantly shown in successive height, one behind another, instead of
the mere tops and flanks of masses, as in the plains; and the forms of
multitudes of them continually defined against the clear sky, near and
above, or against white clouds entangled among their branches, instead
of being confused in dimnes