full size, united terminal
curve, equal and symmetrical range of branches on each side. The ideal
of the mountain oak may be anything, twisting, and leaning, and
shattered, and rock-encumbered, so only that amidst all its misfortunes,
it maintain the dignity of oak; and, indeed, I look upon this kind of
tree as more ideal than the other, in so far as by its efforts and
struggles, more of its nature, enduring power, patience in waiting for,
and ingenuity in obtaining what it wants, is brought out, and so more of
the essence of oak exhibited, than under more fortunate conditions.

Sec. 10. Ideal form in vegetables destroyed by cultivation.

And herein, then, we at last find the cause of that fact which we have
twice already noted, that the exalted or seemingly improved condition,
whether of plant or animal, induced by human interference, is not the
true and artistical ideal of it.[35] It has been well shown by Dr.
Herbert,[36] that many plants are found alone on a certain soil or
subsoil in a wild state, not because such soil is favorable to them, but
because they alone are capable of existing on it, and because all
dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality removed. Now if we withdraw
the plant from this position, which it hardly endures, and supply it
with the earth, and maintain about it the temperature that it delights
in; withdrawing from it at the same time all rivals which, in such
conditions nature would have thrust upon it, we shall indeed obtain a
magnificently developed example of the plant, colossal in size, and
splendid in organization, but we shall utterly lose in it that moral
ideal which is dependent on its right fulfilment of its appointed
functions. It was intended and created by the Deity for the covering of
those lonely spots where no other plant could live; it has been thereto
endowed with courage, and strength, and capacities of endurance
unequalled; its character and glory are not therefore in the gluttonous
and idle feeling of its own over luxuriance, at the expense of other
creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good alone, but in
its right doing of its hard duty; and forward climbing into those spots
of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to the kindness and
presence of the Spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as it
covers the valleys with corn: and there, in its vanward place, and only
there, where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and where
nothing c