can't meet its gaze. You
keep on looking at it in part and parcel.

It's no good looking at a tree, to know it. The only thing is to sit
among the roots and nestle against its strong trunk, and not bother.
That's how I write all about these planes and plexuses, between the
toes of a tree, forgetting myself against the great ankle of the
trunk. And then, as a rule, as a squirrel is stroked into its
wickedness by the faceless magic of a tree, so am I usually stroked
into forgetfulness, and into scribbling this book. My tree-book,
really.

I come so well to understand tree-worship. All the old Aryans
worshiped the tree. My ancestors. The tree of life. The tree of
knowledge. Well, one is bound to sprout out some time or other, chip
of the old Aryan block. I can so well understand tree-worship. And
fear the deepest motive.

Naturally. This marvelous vast individual without a face, without lips
or eyes or heart. This towering creature that never had a face. Here
am I between his toes like a pea-bug, and him noiselessly
over-reaching me. And I feel his great blood-jet surging. And he has
no eyes. But he turns two ways. He thrusts himself tremendously down
to the middle earth, where dead men sink in darkness, in the damp,
dense under-soil, and he turns himself about in high air. Whereas we
have eyes on one side of our head only, and only grow upwards.

Plunging himself down into the black humus, with a root's gushing
zest, where we can only rot dead; and his tips in high air, where we
can only look up to. So vast and powerful and exultant in his two
directions. And all the time, he has no face, no thought: only a huge,
savage, thoughtless soul. Where does he even keep his soul?--Where
does anybody?

A huge, plunging, tremendous soul. I would like to be a tree for a
while. The great lust of roots. Root-lust. And no mind at all. He
towers, and I sit and feel safe. I like to feel him towering round me.
I used to be afraid. I used to fear their lust, their rushing black
lust. But now I like it, I worship it. I always felt them huge
primeval enemies. But now they are my only shelter and strength. I
lose myself among the trees. I am so glad to be with them in their
silent, intent passion, and their great lust. They feed my soul. But I
can understand that Jesus was crucified on a tree.

And I can so well understand the Romans, their terror of the bristling
Hercynian wood. Yet when you look from a height down upon the rolling