FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163  
164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   >>   >|  
ge underground life is that which is led by the organisms we call trees! These great fluttering masses of leaves, stems, boughs, trunks, are not the real trees. They live underground, and what we see are nothing more nor less than their tails. The Mistress dropped her teaspoon. Number Five looked at the Doctor, whose face was very still and sober. The two Annexes giggled, or came very near it. Yes, a tree is an underground creature, with its tail in the air. All its intelligence is in its roots. All the senses it has are in its roots. Think what sagacity it shows in its search after food and drink! Somehow or other, the rootlets, which are its tentacles, find out that there is a brook at a moderate distance from the trunk of the tree, and they make for it with all their might. They find every crack in the rocks where there are a few grains of the nourishing substance they care for, and insinuate themselves into its deepest recesses. When spring and summer come, they let their tails grow, and delight in whisking them about in the wind, or letting them be whisked about by it; for these tails are poor passive things, with very little will of their own, and bend in whatever direction the wind chooses to make them. The leaves make a deal of noise whispering. I have sometimes thought I could understand them, as they talk with each other, and that they seemed to think they made the wind as they wagged forward and back. Remember what I say. The next time you see a tree waving in the wind, recollect that it is the tail of a great underground, many-armed, polypus-like creature, which is as proud of its caudal appendage, especially in summer-time, as a peacock of his gorgeous expanse of plumage. Do you think there is anything so very odd about this idea? Once get it well into your heads, and you will find it renders the landscape wonderfully interesting. There are as many kinds of tree-tails as there are of tails to dogs and other quadrupeds. Study them as Daddy Gilpin studied them in his "Forest Scenery," but don't forget that they are only the appendage of the underground vegetable polypus, the true organism to which they belong. He paused at this point, and we all drew long breaths, wondering what was coming next. There was no denying it, the "cracked Teacup" was clinking a little false,--so it seemed to the company. Yet, after all, the fancy was not delirious,--the mind could follow it well enough; let him go on. Wh
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163  
164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

underground

 

creature

 

appendage

 

summer

 

polypus

 

leaves

 

company

 
recollect
 

Teacup

 

gorgeous


waving

 

expanse

 

caudal

 

clinking

 

peacock

 

understand

 
thought
 

follow

 

Remember

 

plumage


forward

 

wagged

 

delirious

 

organism

 

quadrupeds

 

interesting

 
belong
 

Gilpin

 

Forest

 

studied


vegetable

 

forget

 

wonderfully

 

wondering

 

breaths

 

coming

 

cracked

 

denying

 
paused
 

renders


landscape
 
Scenery
 

Annexes

 
giggled
 

looked

 
Doctor
 

sagacity

 

search

 

senses

 

intelligence