dendrons, sigillarias,
ferns, and other plants, that have shone out with phosphorescent
grandeur amid the inky blackness of the subterranean ether. Around the
feet of the spellbound watchers have sprung up rank blades of
Brobdingnagian grass and creepers, out of which have crept, with lurid
eyes, prodigious millipedes, cockroaches, white ants, myriapods and
scorpions, whilst added to the moaning and sighing of the trees has been
the humming of stone-flies, dragon-flies, and locusts. Galleries and
shafts have echoed and re-echoed with these noises of the old world,
which yet lives, and will continue to live, maybe, to the end of time.

But are the physical trees, the trees that we can all see budding and
sprouting in our gardens to-day--are they ever cognisant of the presence
of the occult? Can they, like certain--not all--dogs and horses and
other animals, detect the proximity of the unknown? Do they tremble and
shake with fear at the sight of some psychic vegetation, or are they
utterly devoid of any such faculty? Can they see, hear, or smell? Have
they any senses at all? And, if they have one sense, have they not
others? Aye, there is food for reflection.

Personally, I believe trees have senses--not, of course, in such a high
state of development as those of animal life; but, nevertheless, senses.
Consequently, I think it quite possible that certain of them, like
certain animals, feel the presence of the superphysical. I often stroll
in woods. I do not love solitude; I love the trees, and I do not think
there is anything in nature, apart from man, I love much more. The oak,
the ash, the elm, the poplar, the willow, to me are more than mere
names; they are friends, the friends of my boyhood and manhood;
companions in my lonely rambles and voluntary banishments; guardians of
my siestas; comforters of my tribulations. The gentle fanning of their
branches has eased my pain-racked brow and given me much-needed sleep,
whilst the chlorophyll of their leaves has acted like balm to my
eyelids, inflamed after long hours of study. I have leaned my head
against their trunks, and heard, or fancied I have heard, the fantastic
murmurings of their peaceful minds. This is what happens in the daytime,
when the hot summer sun has turned the meadow-grass a golden brown. But
with the twilight comes the change. Phantom-land awakes, and mingled
with the shadows of the trees and bushes that lazily unroll themselves
from trunk and branches