|
its sheltering branches shed honeydew. Its roots penetrated the nether realms of the giants, the gods, and of the dragon Nidhug, whose offspring gnawed them incessantly. It is a bit weird to realize that some sequoias and redwoods in their prime today were mature monarchs a millennium and more ago when Yggdrasil and other dream-trees first sprouted in the minds of men. Yggdrasils, sequoias, and sorcerous trees have place in the daily lives of few people nowadays. But though fashions change, trees retain their hold on men's hearts and imaginations. And with trees as with other treasures, possession is nine-tenths of enjoyment's law. One of the happiest facts about trees, great and small, is that they are a myriad times more plentiful than most other forms of wealth, and much more public. For every feature tree that the richest of men may own in his walled estate, there are at large in public parks and unfenced forests countless trees equally magnificent, to be seen and enjoyed by all men. Better still, no man with any fair part of one acre is so poor or so unlucky that he can't grow as glorious a tree, of almost any species he chooses, as ever grew in Eden. |
|||
|
