it to say, that English is not a
language which teaches itself by mere unreflecting usage. It can only be
mastered, in all its wealth, in all its power, by conscious, persistent
labor; and therefore, when all the world is awaking to the value of
general philological science, it would ill become us to be slow in
recognizing the special importance of the study of our own tongue.

* * * * *

From "Man and Nature."

=_197._= THE EVERGREENS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE.

The multitude of species, intermixed as they are in their spontaneous
growth, gives the American forest landscape a variety of aspect not
often seen in the woods of Europe; and the gorgeous tints which nature
repeats from the dying dolphin to paint the falling leaf of the American
maples, oaks, and ash trees, clothe the hill-sides and fringe the
watercourses with a rainbow splendor of foliage, unsurpassed by the
brightest groupings of the tropical flora. It must be admitted, however,
that both the northern and the southern declivities of the Alps exhibit
a nearer approximation to this rich and multifarious coloring of
autumnal vegetation than most American travellers in Europe are willing
to allow; and, besides, the small deciduous shrubs, which often carpet
the forest glades of these mountains, are dyed with a ruddy and orange
glow, which, in the distant landscape, is no mean substitute for the
scarlet and crimson and gold and amber of the trans-atlantic woodland.

No American evergreen known to me resembles the umbrella pine
sufficiently to be a fair object of comparison with it. A cedar, very
common above the Highlands on the Hudson, is extremely like the cypress,
straight, slender, with erect, compressed ramification, and feathered to
the ground, but its foliage is neither so dark nor so dense, the tree
does not attain the majestic height of the cypress, nor has it the lithe
flexibility of that tree. In mere shape, the Lombardy poplar nearly
resembles this latter, but it is almost a profanation to compare the
two, especially when they are agitated by the wind; for under such
circumstances, the one is the most majestic, the other the most
ungraceful, or--if I may apply such an expression to any thing but human
affectation of movement--the most awkward of trees. The poplar trembles
before the blast, flutters, struggles wildly, dishevels its foliage,
gropes around with its feeblest branches, and hisses as in impotent
passion. The c