forest

How quiet it was, and how fast the darkness seemed to close round him! All the birds were silent soon, except that a jay sometimes startled him with its harsh sudden cry; once a rabbit rushed so quickly across his path that he almost fell on it.  On and on he went at a steady jog-trot pace, looking neither to right nor left.  Now, if you have ever been in a beech wood, you must remember that winter and summer the ground is covered with the old dead brown leaves that have fallen from the trees. So thick they lie, that in some places you can stand knee-deep in them, especially if there are any hollows into which they have been drifted by the wind; this particular wood was full of such hollows, some of them wide and long enough for a tall man to lie down in, and Frank knew exactly where to find them.  Turning aside, therefore, at a certain clump of bushes there was the very thing he wanted--bed and hiding-place at once.  It was a broad shallow pit or hollow filled quite up to the top with the red-brown beech leaves.  He scooped out a place just large enough for himself, lay down in it, and carefully replaced the leaves up to his very chin.  He even put a few lightly over his face, and when that was done no one would have imagined that a boy or any other living thing was hidden there.

Amy Walton
Our Frank

Early autumn's frosts had tinged the foliage of the birch, maple, oak, and elm trees, that intermingle in the great pine forests, with a thousand rich colors and shades of gold, brown, olive, pink, and crimson, while the pines, the hemlocks, the firs, and the cedars still wore their dark mantels of perennial green, and all Nature was clad in her sweetest smiles. A solitary woodpecker, perched on the topmost branch of a dead giant of the forest, reaching out far above the surrounding network of leafy branches, from which he might survey the surrounding country, sounded his morning reveille and awaited the coming of his mate. The dry leaves with which mother earth was carpeted, rustled now and again to the bound of the saucy red squirrel, the darting hither and thither of the shy wood-mouse, or the tread of the stupid, half-witted porcupine. The chill October wind soughed through the swaying tree-tops, laden with the rich ozone that gives life, health, and happiness to all animate beings that are permitted to inhale it.

George O. Shields
Cruisings in the Cascades

Very, very deliberately, with his clumsy rod-case in one hand, and his heavy grip in the other, the Senior Surgeon started up the long, broad gravel path to the house. For a man walking as slow as he was, his heart was beating most extraordinarily fast. He was not accustomed to heart-palpitation. The symptom worried him a trifle. Incidentally also his lungs felt strangely stifled with the scent of June. Close at his right an effulgent white and gold syringa bush flaunted its cloying sweetness into his senses. Close at his left a riotous bloom of phlox clamored red-blue-purple-lavender-pink into his dazzled vision. Multi-colored pansies tiptoed velvet-footed across the grass. In soft murky mystery a flame-tinted smoke tree loomed up here and there like a faintly rouged ghost. Over everything, under everything, through everything, lurked a certain strange, novel, vibrating consciousness of _occupancy_. Bees in the rose bushes! Bobolinks in the trees! A woman's work-basket in the curve of the hammock! A doll's tea set sprawling cheerfully in the middle of the broad gravel path!

She was not the daughter of an Ottawa woman, or any other woman, nor was her father an Ottawa man, or any other man. She was the daughter of the mighty cataract. The moon in which she came to the land of the Ottawas was the moon in which the forest trees put forth their earliest buds, and the blooming takes place of the little blue flower, which our forest maidens love to twine with their hair, and our forest boys to gather as the harbinger of returning warmth, and joy, and gladness. She came not at first to the village of the Ottawas in the perfect shape of a human being. It was many years before that, one morning, as the head warrior of the nation went out, as was his wont, to look abroad on the early sky, he found sitting at his door a little creature of a form such as he had never beheld, nor ever dreamed of. Woman she seemed from her waist upward, but fish or rather two fishes below. Her face was that of a most beautiful maiden in the charming hours when she begins to dream of tall youths; her eyes were blue as the deepest tinge of the water, and mild as a summer morning, her teeth white as the teeth of a salmon, and her locks fell sweeping the very earth. Her hands and arms were perfectly shaped, but they were covered with scales, and here and there tinted with red, which glittered like the evening sun on the folds of a cloud. Her height was about that of a small child who is just beginning to use its feet. The strange little creature did not stir as the warrior approached it, but

James Athearn Jones
Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3)

The kind of country that produces this effect must be exceedingly simple in make: it is not the mere isolation from fellow white men that does it--for example, the handful of men who are on the Ogowe do not get like this though many of them are equally lone men, yet they are bright and lively enough. Anyhow, exceedingly simple in make as is this region of Africa from Sherboro to Cape Mount, it consists of four different things in four long lines--lines that go away into eternity for as far as eye can see. There is the band of yellow sand on which your little factory is built. This band is walled to landwards by a wall of dark forest, mounted against the sky to seaward by a wall of white surf; beyond that there is the horizon-bounded ocean. Neither the forest wall nor surf wall changes enough to give any lively variety; they just run up and down a gamut of the same set of variations. In the light of brightest noon the forest wall stands dark against the dull blue sky, in the depth of the darkest night you can see it stand darker still, against the stars; on moonlight nights and on tornado nights, when you see the forest wall by the lightning light, it looks as if it had been done over with a coat of tar. The surf wall is equally consistent, it may be bad, or good as surf, but it's generally the former, which merely means it is a higher, broader wall, and more noisy, but it's the same sort of wall making the same sort of noise all the time. It is always white; in the sunlight, snowy white, suffused with a white mist wherein

Mary Henrietta Kingsley
West African studies

"The troops exulting sat in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies; The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays: The long reflections of the distant fires Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires; A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field, Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send, Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn."

E. Rameur
The Catholic World; Volume I, Issues 1-6

"The dreamy blue of Italian skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have accorded but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying year. It is a sombre picture, set to melancholy music--the background of forest showing black and jagged against a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under foot, the lapping of the cold water on the shore, and, in the foreground, pacing to and fro, now in twilight and now in gloom, a dark figure with a glitter of steel at the shoulder whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers down at him through the matted boughs."

Time would fail us to tell of the feathered life around us,--the blackbirds that build securely in these thickets, the stray swallows that dip their wings in the quiet waters, and the kingfishers that still bring, as the ancients fabled, halcyon days. Yonder stands, against the shore, a bittern, motionless in that wreath of mist which makes his long-legged person almost as dim as his far-off booming by night. There poises a hawk, before sweeping down to some chosen bough in the dense forest; and there fly a pair of blue-jays, screaming, from tree to tree. As for wild quadrupeds, the race is almost passed away. Far to the North, indeed, the great moose still browses on the lily-pads, and the shy beaver nibbles them; but here the few lingering four-footed creatures only haunt, but do not graze upon these floating pastures. Eyes more favored than ours may yet chance to spy an otter in this still place; there by the shore are the small footprints of a mink; that dark thing disappearing in the waters, yonder, a soft mass of drowned fur, is a "musquash." Later in the season, a mound of earth will be his winter dwelling-place; and those myriad muscle-shells at the water's edge are the remnant of his banquets,--once banquets for the Indians, too.

After the waters had closed above my head for, perhaps, five minutes of strangled, half-protesting, half-willing surrender I was suddenly compelled, by what agency I know not, to struggle to the surface, to look around me, and then quite instantly to forget my immersion. The figure of Trenchard, standing exactly as I had left him, his hands uneasily at his sides, a half-anxious, half-confident smile on his lips, his eyes staring straight in front of him, absolutely compelled my attention. I had forgotten him, we had all forgotten him, his own lady had forgotten him. I withdrew from the struggling, noisy group and stepped back to his side. It was then that, as I now most clearly remember, I was conscious of something else, was aware that there was a strange faint blue light in the dark clumsy station, a faint throbbing glow, that, like the reflection of blue water on a sunlit ceiling, hovered and hung above the ugly shabbiness of the engines and trucks, the rails with scattered pieces of paper here and there, the iron arms that supported the vast glass roof, the hideous funnel that hung with its gaping mouth above the water-tank. The faint blue light was the spring evening--the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses. A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft of light quivered upon the blackness, quivered and spread like a golden fan, then flooded the

Hugh Walpole
The Dark Forest

He drew a long sigh of more than delight, for framed in the doorway he saw a figure in misty white, leaning to the gilded upright of a harp. He knew at once that it was Shirley. Holding his breath, he came closer, his feet muffled in the thick grass. She wore a gown of some gauze-like material sprinkled with knots of embroidery and with her lifted face and filmy aureole of hair, she looked like a tall golden candle. He stood in the dense obscurity, one hand gripping the gnarled limb of a catalpa, his eyes following the shapely arms from wrist to shoulder, the fingers straying across the strings, the bending cheek caressing the carved wood. She was playing the melody of Shelley's _Indian Serenade_--touching the chords softly and tenderly--and his lips moved, molding themselves soundlessly to the words:

Hallie Erminie Rives
The Valiants of Virginia

Zalee walked very quickly. We could hardly keep pace with him. I argued that he wished to be far from the place before morning. There was little of incident in our trip. The same sweet odours filled the air, but as we got farther away from the coast we felt the breeze less, and finally there was none. Now a gentle rain began to fall, and the wood was thick with a warm steam, which filled our eyes and nostrils and almost blinded us. The shadows in the wood were dark, and the great trees seen through the mist seemed like giants standing here and there to bar the way. We were all the time ascending, which made the journey a tiresome one. Finally we came out upon a plateau, and here it was bare of trees. We could look over the lower hills and the treetops where our house had been. We marked its situation by the column of smoke which rose steadily upward straight into the air. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it came, the mist gradually cleared away, the moon had a chance to shine out, and we stood for a moment looking downward across the waters of the indentation that we called the bay and out to sea. Then Zalee led us back to a thick fringe of trees which skirted the lower hill. As we turned to face it I saw the great citadel of Christophe, the grim and ghastly La Ferriere, loom out upon its mountain prominence, and I shuddered as I looked, for we were at least six miles nearer than we had been at the cave. Off to the left there was a steep precipice, and over this, in the uncertain light, I saw that many large birds hovered and

Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield
Latitude 19 degree

As if the hour would fain worthily invest the shining apparition, so beautifully did heaven and earth with all rays of life play into each other,--love-thirsty stars flew like heaven-butterflies into the sea,--the moon had soared away over the impetuous earth-flame of Vesuvius, and spread her tender light over the happy world, the sea and the shores,--Epomeo hovered with his silvered woods, and with the hermitage of his summit high in the night blue,--near by stirred the life of the singing, dancing ones, with their prayers and their festal rockets which they were sending aloft. When Linda had long looked across the sea toward Vesuvius, she spoke, of herself, to the silent Albano, by way of answering his exclamation, and making up for her sudden turning round and staring at him. "I come from Vesuvius," said she; "but he is quite as sublime near at hand as afar off, which is so singular." Altogether strange and spirit-like did it sound to him, that he really heard this voice. With one that indicated deep emotion he replied: "In this land, however, everything is great indeed, even the little is made great by the large,--this little human pleasure here between the burnt-out volcano[98] and the burning one,--all is at one, and therefore right and so godlike." At once attracted and distracted, not knowing him, although previously struck with the resemblance of his voice to that of Roquairol, gladly reflecting on his simple words, she looked longer than she was aware at the ingenuous, but daring and warm

Jean Paul
Titan: A Romance

Still more beautiful perhaps, is the appearance of this scene during the stillness of the night, when the moon throws her dubious rays over the objects of nature. The gardens of the Thuilleries remain crowded with people, who seem to enjoy the repose which universally prevails, and from whom no sound is to be heard which can break the stillness or serenity of the scene. The regularity of the forms is wholly lost in the masses of light and shadow that are there displayed; the foliage throws a chequered shade over the ground beneath, while the different vistas of the Elysian Fields are seen in that soft and mellow light by which the radiance of the moon is so peculiarly distinguished. After passing through these favourite scenes of the French people, we frequently came to small encampments of the allied troops in the remote parts of the grounds. The appearance of these bivouacks, composed of Cossack squadrons, Hungarian hussars, or Prussian artillery, in the obscurity of moonlight, and surrounded by the gloom of forest scenery, was beyond measure striking. The picturesque forms of the soldiers, sleeping on their arms under the shade of the trees, or half hid by the rude huts which they had erected for their shelter; the varied attitudes of the horses standing amidst the waggons by which the camp was followed, or sleeping beside the veterans whom they had borne through all the fortunes of war; the dark masses of the artillery, dimly discerned in the shades of night, or faintly reflecting the pale light of the moon,

Archibald Alison
Travels in France during the years 1814-1815

Turning in towards the first of these channels, we presently saw the inlet of darkest-blue water, pushing its way into the heart of the island. Crowning its eastern bank, and about half a mile distant, stood an immense mass of buildings, from the centre of which tall white towers and green cupolas shot up against the sky. This was the monastery of Valaam. Here, in the midst of this lonely lake, on the borders of the Arctic Zone, in the solitude of unhewn forests, was one of those palaces which Religion is so fond of rearing, to show her humility. In the warm afternoon sunshine, and the singular luxuriance of vegetation which clothed the terraces of rock on either hand, we forgot the high latitude, and, but for the pines in the rear, could have fancied ourselves approaching some cove of Athos or Euboea. The steamer ran so near the rocky walls that the trailing branches of the birch almost swept her deck; every ledge traversing their gray, even masonry, was crowded with wild red pinks, geranium, saxifrage, and golden-flowered purslane; and the air, wonderfully pure and sweet in itself, was flavored with delicate woodland odors. On the other side, under the monastery, was an orchard of large apple-trees in full bloom, on a shelf near the water; above them grew huge oaks and maples, heavy with their wealth of foliage; and over the tops of these the level coping of the precipice, with a balustrade, upon which hundreds of pilgrims, who had arrived before us, were leaning and looking down.

Various
The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864

"How very stupid he is!" said she to herself; "for if I could only summon up courage enough to run over the bridge by the hut, and then again out across the yard, I should certainly get there much sooner than he will." She was already standing facing the stream and the fir-hill. "Shall I?--No, it's too terrible." A little white dog stood on the other side, keeping up a loud and continued bark at her. In her fright the little animal appeared a perfect monster, and she sprang back trembling. "Oh dear," said she, "Andrew has by this time got such a long distance before me, while I'm stopping here to consider." The little dog still barked on; and as she looked at it more attentively, it no longer struck her as being so terrible, but, on the contrary, she was quite charmed with it. It had a red collar, to which was affixed a tiny glittering bell; and as often as it raised its head and shook it, while barking, the tinkling noise it produced was to her ears most musical. "Oh, I'll venture," cried little Maria; "I'll run as fast as I can, and I shall soon be on the other side; they surely can't eat me entirely." With this the young courageous child sprang on the bridge, and quickly passed the little dog, who immediately ceased his barking to fawn upon her. And now she was standing on the dread spot; and the black firs, that were thickly grouped together, shut out from her view the home of her fathers, and the rest of the pretty landscape. But how amazed was she at the spectacle before her!

Ludwig Tieck
Tales From the 'Phantasus', etc. of Ludwig Tieck

They soon left the highroad; and for several days held on downwards, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick underwood. On the evening of the fourth day, they had reached the margin of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for navigation. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them with astonishment. Beneath a honeycombed cliff, which supported one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana-plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy leaves clusters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, yams and cassava plants were flourishing luxuriantly, the whole being surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana-leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant?

Charles Kingsley
Westward Ho!

It is absolutely deserted and strangely empty. Trees, bushes, sea-rushes, tamarisks, and heather grow on the edge of the ditches. We came to broad stretches of land, but we did not see a soul anywhere. The sky was bleak and a fine rain moistened the atmosphere and spread a grey veil over the country. The paths we chose were hollow and shaded by clusters of foliage, the branches of which, uniting, drooped over our heads and almost prevented us from walking erect. The light that filtered through the dome of leaves was greenish, and as dim as on a winter evening. But farther away, it was brilliant, and played around the edges of the leaves and accentuated their delicate pinking. Later we reached the top of a barren slope, which was flat and smooth, and without a blade of grass to relieve the monotony of its colour. Sometimes, however, we came upon a long avenue of beech-trees with moss growing around the foot of their thick, shining trunks. There were wagon-tracks in these avenues, as if to indicate the presence of a neighbouring castle that we might see at any moment; but they ended abruptly in a stretch of flat land that continued between two valleys, through which it would spread its green maze furrowed by the capricious meanderings of hedges, spotted here and there by a grove, brightened by clumps of sea-rushes, or by some field bordering the meadows which rose slowly to meet the hills and lost themselves in the horizon. Above these hills, far away in the mist, stretched the blue surface of the ocean.

The sun had not been oppressive at any time during the day, though the crowded building had been close and warm, and now it lay like a painted light on the grass and paths over which they passed to the entrance of the grounds around the Tree.  Holden Chapel, which enclosed the space on the right as they went in, shed back the sun from its brick-red flank, rising unrelieved in its venerable ugliness by any touch of the festive preparations; but to their left and diagonally across from them high stagings supported tiers of seats along the equally unlovely red bulks of Hollis and of Harvard.  These seats, and the windows in the stories above them, were densely packed with people, mostly young girls dressed in a thousand enchanting shades and colours, and bonneted and hatted to the last effect of fashion.  They were like vast terraces of flowers to the swift glance, and here and there some brilliant parasol, spread to catch the sun on the higher ranks, was like a flaunting poppy, rising to the light and lolling out above the blooms of lower stature.  But the parasols were few, for the two halls flung wide curtains of shade over the greater part of the spectators, and across to the foot of the chapel, while a piece of the carpentry whose simplicity seems part of the Class Day tradition shut out the glare and the uninvited public, striving to penetrate the enclosure next the street.  In front of this yellow pine wall; with its ranks of benches, stood the Class Day Tree, girded at ten

William Dean Howells
Entire PG Edition of William Dean Howells

At last the day was come. After breakfast Wally went to her room, and washed herself, and combed her hair without end. Once more she was a woman--a girl! Once more she stood before the glass, and adorned herself, and looked to see if she were fair, if she might hope to find favour in Joseph's eyes; and once more she had procured a new necklace, even more beautiful than the first, and filigree pins for her hair as well. The box was on the table before her, she took out the ornament, and tied it above her bodice; the bright silver was as white as the snowy pleated sleeves of her chemise and tinkled like clear marriage-bells, and through the rose-coloured chintz curtains a dim rosy light shed a tender mist of bridal-glow over the girl's noble figure. When she was ready, she took from its case a meerschaum pipe heavy with silver, such as no peasant of the country had far and wide--a really splendid pipe--and yet she held it long in her hand, doubting whether it were good enough for Joseph. And still there was something else, that she took out slowly, almost timidly, looking at the door to see if it were securely fastened; it was a small round box, and in it there lay--a ring. She trembled as she took it out, and a tear of unutterable joy and thankfulness glistened in her eye. She held the ring in her folded hands, and for the first time for many days she knelt down, and she prayed over it that the beloved one might be linked to her for ever. And she no longer heard the rustle of her silks, and

Wilhelmine von Hillern
The Vulture Maiden

For ages, for years, it was going to be her dear and close companion, her fellow-paddler in the lake, her fellow-wanderer in God's woods. Her eyes were soft with joy at the thought of how soon now she was going to be able to tuck this precious being under her arm and take it with her lightly and easily into the garden, restored to her own slim nimbleness again, and point out the exceeding beauty of the world to its new, astonished eyes. She would show it the rye-fields, and the great heaped-up sky. She would make it acquainted with the frogs, and introduce it to the bittern. She would draw its attention to the delight of lying face downwards on hot grass where tufts of thyme grew and watching the busy life among the blades and roots. She would insist on its observing the storks standing in their nest on the stable roof and how the light lay along their white wings, and how the red of their legs was like the red of the pollard willows in March. And at night, if it were so ill-advised as not to sleep, she would pick it up and take it to the window and impress its soft mind all over with shining little stars. Wonderful to think that before the orange-coloured lupins, those August glories, had done flowering, she would be out among them again, only with her son this time, her flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, her Robertlet.

The sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush,' and the bright moon rose high in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his flute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, the mild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and as he mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from his feet heavily.  As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slipped from his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath. He began his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold, and as he reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently on his shoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel. She took her place beside him, and for the present they were happy; for the Indian has a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble as in his own freedom, which makes him the child of the forest. As the legend runs, a large white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and dismal winter weather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward. He at length approached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name, walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavy snow toward the island.  It was the same spring ensuing that the lovers met.  They had left their first retreat, and were now seated among the branches of a large elm which hung far over the lake. (The same tree is still standing, and excites universal curiosity and interest.) For fear of being detected, they talked almost in a whisper, and now, that they

They soon left the high road; and for several days held on downwards, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick underwood. On the evening of the fourth day, they had reached the margin of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for navigation. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them with astonishment. Beneath a honey-combed cliff, which supported one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana-plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy leaves clusters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, yams and cassava plants were flourishing luxuriantly, the whole being surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant?

We remember many years ago passing directly from the gallery of Dsseldorf pictures, then recently opened in New York, to the hall of the National Academy. The contrast to a lover of his country was a painful one. The foreign school possessed ripeness of design, and accurate, if in many instances somewhat mannered and artificial execution. The native collection exhibited a poverty in conception, and a harshness and crudity in performance, sadly discouraging to one who would fain see the fine arts progress in equal measure with the more material elements of civilization. Since that time, however, year by year, the art of painting, at least, has steadily advanced, the light of genius has been granted to spring from our midst, our artists dwelling in foreign lands have returned to find a congenial atmosphere under their native skies, and, in so far as landscape is concerned, we have now no need to shun comparison with the best pictures produced abroad. Our school is an original one, for our artists have gone to the great teacher, Nature, who has shown them without stint the bright sun, luminous sky, pearly dawns, hazy middays, glowing sunsets, shimmering twilights, golden moons, rolling mists, fantastic clouds, wooded hills, snow-capped peaks, waving grain fields, primeval forests, tender spring foliage, gorgeous autumnal coloring, grand cataracts, leaping brooks, noble rivers, clear lakes, bosky dells, lichen-covered crags, and varied seacoasts of this western continent. Here is no lack of diversity, here

Various
The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863

hiding the shaggy bark with their tender green leaves. It was a combination of tree-majesty and grace that is rarely seen. In a tropical forest I have beheld a lofty tree covered thickly all over its trunk and branches with ferns and parasitic plants, but the sight, though beautiful, was suggestive of morbid, unnatural growth. This royal elm out of its own sap had clothed its trunk as with a thickly-twining vine. When, after gazing our fill, we drove reluctantly out of the shady green hollow into the sunshine, and began to climb a hill, we saw at the top a small house surrounded by fruit trees and shaded in front by a grape-arbor. On reaching it we stopped to ask our way of a man who sat in his shirt-sleeves near the front door, fanning himself with his straw hat. He seemed frank and inclined to talk, and asked us to stop and rest a while in the shade. We did so, and his wife brought us some fresh buttermilk to drink, the children gathering about to look at us as if our advent was the incident of the month. In conversation we learned that he was the owner of forty acres, which he devoted largely to the cultivation of small fruits. The land was paid for, with the exception of a mortgage of three hundred dollars, which he hoped to lift in a season or two if the yield was good.

Various
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880.

THERE is no doubt that when Miss Babe Hightower stepped out on the porch, just after sunrise one fine morning in the spring of 1876, she had the opportunity of enjoying a scene as beautiful as any that nature offers to the human eye. She was poised, so to speak, on the shoulder of Lost Mountain, a spot made cheerful and hospitable by her father's industry, and by her own inspiring presence. The scene, indeed, was almost portentous in its beauty. Away above her the summit of the mountain was bathed in sunlight, while in the valley below the shadows of dawn were still hovering--a slow-moving sea of transparent gray, touched here and there with silvery reflections of light. Across the face of the mountain that lifted itself to the skies, a belated cloud trailed its wet skirts, revealing, as it fled westward, a panorama of exquisite loveliness. The fresh, tender foliage of the young pines, massed here and there against the mountain side, moved and swayed in the morning breeze until it seemed to be a part of the atmosphere, a pale-green mist that would presently mount into the upper air and melt away. On a dead pine a quarter of a mile away, a turkey-buzzard sat with wings outspread to catch the warmth of the sun; while far above him, poised in the illimitable blue, serene, almost motionless, as though swung in the centre of space, his mate overlooked the world. The wild honeysuckles clambered from bush to bush, and from tree to tree, mingling their faint, sweet perfume with the delicious odors that seemed

Joel Chandler Harris
Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches

So they began to converse of the blue of the skies, of the murmur of waves and of fragrant breezes, and of the summits of crags, mingling here and there, after the fashion of travellers, laughter and mockery at the land of their fathers. And yet around them stretched the forests of Lithuania, so majestic and so full of beauty! The black currant, intertwined with a wreath of wild hop; the service tree, with the fresh blush of a shepherdess; the hazel, like a maenad, with green thyrsuses, decked with the pearls of its nuts as with clusters of grapes; and beneath them the children of the forest, the hawthorn in the embrace of the elder, the blackberry pressing its black lips upon the raspberry. The trees and bushes joined hands with their leaves, like young men and maidens standing ready for a dance around a married pair. In the midst of the company stood the pair, distinguished from all the rest of the forest throng by gracefulness of form and charm of colour; the white birch, the beloved, with her husband the hornbeam. But farther off, like grave elders sitting in silence and gazing on their children and grandchildren, stood on this side hoary beeches, and on that matronly poplars; and an oak, bearded with moss, and bearing on its humped back the weight of five centuries, supported itself--as on the broken pillars of sepulchres--on the petrified corpses of other oaks, its ancestors.

Adam Mickiewicz
Pan Tadeusz

The Pope sits enthroned in full state, surrounded by his court, all his cardinals in a great semicircle around him, cardinal bishops and priests on his right, cardinal deacons on his left--the train bearers sitting on foot-stools at their feet. Kneeling on the steps of the throne, the new cardinals kiss the Pontiff's foot, hand, and cheek; they then rise and embrace the whole college in the order of their precedence, and as a final ceremony, they kneel again before the Pope, the hoods of their cloaks are drawn over their heads by two masters of ceremonies, and a cardinal's hat is held over them while the Pope addresses a few words to each. The new cardinals now take their seats according to the rank just conferred upon them, and the proceedings close with an address of thanksgiving to the Pope made upon his return to his apartments, and a _Te Deum_ in the Sistine chapel. In the afternoon of the same day, couriers and messengers hurry through the streets of Rome. The new red hat is carried to the happy recipient by a "monsignore of the papal wardrobe," the rochet and the scarlet _berretta_ are conveyed by less important functionaries, and all and each have to be thanked and entertained and recompensed when possible. The Secretary of State, all the cardinals and papal officials, as well as personal friends and private individuals hasten to pay congratulatory visits (_visite di calore_) upon the new cardinals; and royal fashion, the state calls have to be immediately returned. If the

Mildred Anna Rosalie Tuker
Rome

When night fell and the moon rose above the trees, Rabbit came along, as was his custom, to steal his nightly meal. As he came near the garden very softly, he saw in the moonlight what he thought was a man standing in the path by the garden gate. The moon hung low over the forest, and there was a thin grey mist on the earth, for it was near to autumn and the nights were already cool; and the figure of the little man looked larger than human in the misty light, and it cast a long black shadow like that of a giant on the grass. Rabbit was much afraid and he trembled like an aspen leaf, but he stood quiet behind a tree and watched the strange figure. For a long time he stood still and watched and listened. But the strange figure did not move, and not a sound did Rabbit hear but the chirp of a cricket. Then with great caution he came closer. But still the figure did not move. Then his fear left him and he grew bolder, for he was very hungry, and he could smell the vegetables and the wild honeysuckle in the still night air. So he walked bravely up to the little dummy man and said, "Get out of my way and let me pass." But the man did not move. Then Rabbit struck the man a sharp blow with his fist. But still the figure did not move. Rabbit's fist stuck fast in the gum and he could not pull it away. Then he struck out with his other fist, and it too, like the other, was held firm. "I shall kick you," said Rabbit in a rage. "Take that," and he struck out wildly with his foot. But his foot, like his fists,

Cyrus Macmillan
Canadian Fairy Tales

Then Albine and Serge passed on through a rank growth of peonies, reaching to their waists. The white flowers fell to pieces as they passed, with a rain of snowy petals which was as refreshing to their hands as the heavy drops of a thunder shower. And the red ones grinned with apoplectical faces which perturbed them. Next they passed through a field of fuchsias, forming dense, vigorous shrubs that delighted them with their countless bells. Then they went on through fields of purple veronicas and others of geraniums, blazing with all the fiery tints of a brasier, which the wind seemed to be ever fanning into fresh heat. And they forced their way through a jungle of gladioli, tall as reeds, which threw up spikes of flowers that gleamed in the full daylight with all the brilliance of burning torches. They lost themselves too in a forest of sunflowers, with stalks as thick as Albine's wrist, a forest darkened by rough leaves large enough to form an infant's bed, and peopled with giant starry faces that shone like so many suns. And thence they passed into another forest, a forest of rhododendrons so teeming with blossom that the branches and leaves were completely hidden, and nothing but huge nosegays, masses of soft calyces, could be seen as far as the eye could reach.

Emile Zola
Abbe Mouret's Transgression

The rest of the party were well in advance, out of sight and hearing. Tramp, tramp, the steady regular footfall of her bearers, and the light plashing of rain drops as they fell, and the stir of the wind in the leaves, were all the sounds that Daisy heard. No rain fell now; on the contrary the heaven was clear as a bell, and light enough came through the woods to show the way with comfortable certainty. Overhead, the stars were shining down with wonderful brilliancy, through the air which the storm had cleansed from all vapours; the moon was coming up somewhere, too. The smell of the trees and other green things was exceedingly sweet after the rain; and the delicious soft air was very delicious after the sultry day. Never in her life after did Daisy forget that night's work. This ride from the cottage to the shore was something she enjoyed with all her might. It was so wild and strange as well as sweet. Rocks and tree-trunks, and the turnings of the road had all such a mysterious new look, different from what daylight showed them; it was an endless pleasure. Till the walk ended. It came out at last upon the shore of the river and into the moonlight. High in the eastern sky the moon hung, shedding her broad light down all over the river, which crisped and sparkled under it; and there by the water's edge the members of the party of pleasure were huddled together preparing to embark. Over their heads the sails of Mr. Randolph's boat stood up in the moonlight. The doctor and Logan set down their burden and waited. The Fish's were

Elizabeth Wetherell
Melbourne House

I liked this railroad guard duty. Between Bolivar and Toone's the road ran through dense woods, with only an occasional little farm on either side of the road, and it was pleasant to be out in those fine old woods, and far away from the noise and smells of the camps. And there are so many things that are strange and attractive, to be seen and heard, when one is standing alone on picket, away out in some lonesome place, in the middle of the night. I think that a man who has never spent some wakeful hours in the night, by himself, out in the woods, has simply missed one of the most interesting parts of life. The night is the time when most of the wild things are astir, and some of the tame ones, too. There was some kind of a very small frog in the swamps and marshes near Bolivar that gave forth about the most plaintive little cry that I ever heard. It was very much like the bleating of a young lamb, and, on hearing it the first time, I thought sure it was from some little lamb that was lost, or in distress of some kind. I never looked the matter up to ascertain of what particular species those frogs were. They may be common throughout the South, but I never heard this particular call except around and near Bolivar. And the woods between Bolivar and Toone's were full of owls, from great big fellows with a thunderous scream, down to the little screech owls, who made only a sort of chattering noise. One never failing habit of the big owls was to assemble in some grove of tall trees just about

Leander Stillwell
The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865

In the twentieth year of the reign of the right high and puissant King Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the 21st of April, and on one of the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England, a fair youth, having somewhat the appearance of a page, was leaning over the terrace wall on the north side of Windsor Castle, and gazing at the magnificent scene before him. On his right stretched the broad green expanse forming the Home Park, studded with noble trees, chiefly consisting of ancient oaks, of which England had already learnt to be proud, thorns as old or older than the oaks, wide-spreading beeches, tall elms, and hollies. The disposition of these trees was picturesque and beautiful in the extreme. Here, at the end of a sweeping vista, and in the midst of an open space covered with the greenest sward, stood a mighty broad-armed oak, beneath whose ample boughs, though as yet almost destitute of foliage, while the sod beneath them could scarcely boast a head of fern, couched a herd of deer. There lay a thicket of thorns skirting a sand-bank, burrowed by rabbits, on this hand grew a dense and Druid-like grove, into whose intricacies the slanting sunbeams pierced; on that extended a long glade, formed by a natural avenue of oaks, across which, at intervals, deer were passing. Nor were human figures wanting to give life and interest to the scene. Adown the glade came two keepers of the forest, having each a couple of buckhounds with them in leash, whose baying sounded cheerily amid the

William Harrison Ainsworth
Windsor Castle

Next morning at daylight we went on board our boat.  In the centre was an awning, or _toldo_, which served as a cabin.  The crew, consisting of eight native Indians, urged her on with long broad-bladed oars when the wind was contrary, while their chief or captain stood astern and steered with another.  When the wind was favourable a large sail was hoisted, and we glided rapidly up the river.  The banks are beautifully green, and covered with an exuberant growth of many varieties of trees; indeed, the plains on either side vie in richness of vegetation with any other spot between the tropics.  Several times we cut off bends of the river by narrow canals, the branches of the trees, interwoven by numberless creepers, which hung down in festoons covered with brilliant blossoms, forming a dense canopy over our heads.  Although the stream is sluggish, we were unable to reach Bodegas that night.  We stopped therefore at the house of a gentleman engaged in the cultivation of cacao.  The tree on which it grows somewhat resembles a lilac in size and shape.  The fruit is yellowish-red, and oblong in shape, and the seeds are enveloped in a mass of white pulp.  It is from the seeds that chocolate is prepared. The flowers and fruits grow directly out of the trunk and branches. Cacao--or, as we call it, cocoa--was used by the Mexicans before the arrival of the Spaniards.  It was called by them _chocolatt_, from whence we derive the name of the compound of which it is the chief ingredient--chocolate.  So highly was it esteemed, that Linnaeus thought

W.H.G. Kingston
On the Banks of the Amazon

At these words, the illuminated proficiency of her glance, and her honourable resolution to implicate me in the display by head or feet, the ever-revered image of a just and obedience-loving father ceased to have any further tangible influence. Let it be remembered that there is a deep saying, “A virtuous woman will cause more evil than ten river pirates.” As for the person who is recording his incompetence, the room and all those about began to engulf him in an ever-increasing circular motion, his knees vibrated together with unrestrained pliancy, and concentrating his voice to indicate by the allegory some faint measure of his emotion, he replied passionately, “Let the amusement referred to take the form of sitting in a boiling cauldron exposed to the derision of all beholders, this one will now enter it wearing yellow silk trousers.”

As he sat there, abandoning himself to the sensation of loneliness and despair that crept over him, he beheld before him, across the Meuse, the accursed fields where he had fought the day but one before. Bitter memories rose to his mind, in the fading light of that day of gloom and rain, as he surveyed the saturated, miry expanse of country that rose from the river’s bank and was lost on the horizon. The defile of Saint-Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had gained their rear, ran along the bend of the stream as far as the white cliffs of the quarries of Montimont. The summits of the trees in the wood of la Falizette rose in rounded, fleecy masses over the rising ground of Seugnon. Directly before his eyes, a little to the left, was Saint-Menges, the road from which descended by a gentle slope and ended at the ferry; there, too, were the mamelon of Hattoy in the center, and Illy, in the far distance, in the background, and Fleigneux, almost hidden in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote, on the right. He recognized the plateau where he had spent interminable hours among the cabbages, and the eminences that the reserve artillery had struggled so gallantly to hold, where he had seen Honoré meet his death on his dismounted gun. And it was as if the baleful scene were again before him with all its abominations, steeping his mind in horror and disgust, until he was sick at heart.

She found a dry place on the pebbles, removed her hat and sat down, her hands clasped around her knees, her eyes turned seaward. She had come out here to think, but it was odd how fugitive and transient her thoughts became. Her husband was always there in the background, but in those moments it was Lessingham who was the predominant figure. She remembered his earnestness, his tender solicitude for her, the courage which, when necessity demanded, had flamed up in him, a born and natural quality. She remembered the agony of those few minutes on the preceding day, when nothing but what still seemed a miracle had saved him. At one moment she felt herself inclined to pray that he might never come back. At another, her heart ached to see him once more. She knew so well that if he came it would be for her sake, that he would come to ask her finally the question with which she had fenced. She knew, too, that his coming would be the moment of her life. She was so much of a woman, and the passionate craving of her sex to give love for love was there in her heart, almost omnipotent. And in the background there was that bitter desire to bring suffering upon the man who had treated her like a child, who had placed her in a false position with all other women, who had dawdled and idled away his days, heedless of his duty, heedless of every serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear, and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a

E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Zeppelin's Passenger

"But if Paganini seemed mysterious and strange enough when I saw him walking in bright mid-day under the green trees of the Hamburg Jungfernstieg, how his awful bizarre appearance startled me at the concert in the evening! The Hamburg Opera House was the scene of this concert, and the art-loving public had flocked thither so early, and in such numbers, that I only just succeeded in obtaining a little place in the orchestra. Although it was post-day, I saw in the first row of boxes the whole educated commercial world, a whole Olympus of bankers and other millionaires, the gods of coffee and sugar by the side of their fat goddesses, Junos of Wandrahm and Aphrodites of Dreckwall. A religious silence reigned through the assembly. Every eye was directed towards the stage. Every ear was making ready to listen. My neighbour, an old furrier, took the dirty cotton out of his ears in order to drink in better the costly sounds for which he had paid two thalers. At last a dark figure, which seemed to have arisen from the under-world, appeared upon the stage. It was Paganini in his black costume--the black dress-coat and the black waistcoat of a horrible cut, such as is perhaps prescribed by infernal etiquette at the court of Proserpina; the black trousers anxiously hanging around the thin legs. The long arms appeared to grow still longer, as, holding the violin in one hand and the bow in the other, he almost touched the ground with them while displaying to the public his unprecedented obeisances. In the angular curves of his

Heinrich Heine
The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine

Her voice was persuasion's own, and there was a tremulous smile upon her red lips, and a soft light in her dark eyes. "There is a thing that I have long divined," she said, "and that is the strange regard for what you think and what you are that exists deep, deep down in his mind. It lies so deep that he is mainly ignorant that it is there. He thinks that you and he are all inimical. But it is there like an ancient treasure far down in the ocean depths, far below the surface storm. There is in him a preoccupation with you. Often and often, when questions of right and wrong arise, I know that his thought descends to that secret place where he keeps an image of you! I know that he interrogates that image, 'Is it thus or so that you would do?' And if, at times, scornfully or sullenly or with indifference, he does the opposite to what the image says, yet none the less at the next decision will his thought fly to that same judgment bar! It is an attraction that he fights against, a habit of the mind that he would break if he could--but it is there--indeed, indeed it is there! It is despotic--I do not think that he can escape. Ah, if you and he were friends, you would be friends indeed!" She looked at him pleadingly, with her hand outstretched.

"Yet, it's easy," she said boldly, with bland retaliation. "The reports are not good. And the trouble stands out clear as daylight. I guess a big scale contour map is the key to it. We've 'hand-weeded' the Shagaunty Valley. It's picked bare to the bone. The folks have cleared the forests right away to the higher slopes of the river. We're moving farther and farther away from the river highway. Well, that's all right in its way. Ordinarily that would just mean our light railways are extending farther, and a few cents more are added to our transport costs. Owing to our concentration of organisation that wouldn't signify. No. It's Nature, it's the forest itself turning us down. And the map, and the reports show that. The camps are right out on the plateau surrounding the valley, which is unprotected from winter storms. The close, luxurious growth of the valley we have been accustomed to is gone. The standing cordage of lumber is no less, only in bulk, girth. The trees are mostly less than half the girth. The result? Why, they have to work farther out. Each camp cuts over four times the area. Instead of a proportion of, say, two trees in five, it's about one in, say, ten. It looks like a simple sum. I should say we've lumbered that valley at least one season too long."

Be that as it might, ten minutes had not passed before Dunwoodie with his half hundred archers was reinforced by a gallant array of bowmen and men-at-arms. The outlaws, a hundred or more in number, and led by the Monkslayer himself, had been pressing Dunwoodie hard. The robber chief, carrying a sword and wearing the steel cap and breast-plate of a knight, stood forth from all shelter, commanding and exhorting his followers, apparently with no fear at all of flying shafts and quarrels. The men of Dunwoodie Manor fought from behind trees and rocks; and most of them had quilted, leathern jackets; but they were no match in archery, for the outlaws, many of whom, by virtue of their skill with the long-bow, had lived for years in the forest and never lacked for venison or greatly feared the sheriff and his men. Half a dozen Dunwoodie archers already lay weltering on the leaves, struck through throat or face with cloth-yard shafts; and only one or two of the robber knaves had been likewise served. Our coming, however, changed all in a twinkling. Mountjoy struck the outlaws on one flank just as Lionel of Montmorency came down upon the other. In the time a man would need to run a furlong’s length, a score or more of the varlets were slain by shafts and cross-bow quarrels or by the swords of our men-at-arms, fifty more had clasped their hands above their heads in token of surrender, and the Monkslayer and the remainder of his crew had taken flight toward the center of the forest.

Bernard Gay Marshall
Cedric, the Forester

The convulsions had ceased, but his mind was wandering and his speech was rambling.  It was easy to tell of what he was thinking.  He was a little boy in the woodland home with his mother again, and was telling her delightedly of what he had seen and found, and of the yellow mandrake apples he had stored in a hollow log.  She should help him eat them.  And then the scene would shift, and he was older, and we were together in the fields.  He called to me excitedly to take the dog to the other side of the brush-heap, for the woodchuck was slipping through that way!  There was the old merry ring in his voice, and I knew where he was and how there came to him, in fancy, the sweet perfumes of the fields, and how his eyes, which were opened wide but saw us not, were blessed with all the greenness and the glory of the summer of long ago.  Then his manner changed, and the word "Jean" came softly to his lips, and again I knew they were camping out together, and he was teaching to his wife the pleasant mysteries of the forest, and all woodcraft.  There was love in his tones and in his features. The breast of the woman holding his hand heaved, and the pallor on her face grew more.

Stanley Waterloo
A Man and a Woman

The country around Santarem is not clothed with dense and lofty forest like the rest of the great humid river plain of the Amazons. It is a campo region; a slightly elevated and undulating tract of land, wooded only in patches, or with single scattered trees. A good deal of the country on the borders of the Tapajos, which flows from the great campo area of interior Brazil, is of this description. It is on this account that I consider the eastern side of the river, towards its mouth,, to be a northern prolongation of the continental land, and not a portion of the alluvial flats of the Amazons. The soil is a coarse gritty sand; the substratum, which is visible in some places, consisting of sandstone conglomerate probably of the same formation as that which underlies the Tabatinga clay in other parts of the river valley. The surface is carpeted with slender hairy grasses, unfit for pasture, growing to a uniform height of about a foot. The patches of wood look like copses in the middle of green meadows; they are called by the natives "ilhas de mato," or islands of jungle; the name being, no doubt, suggested by their compactness of outline, neatly demarcated in insular form from the smooth carpet of grass, around them. They are composed of a great variety of trees loaded with succulent parasites, and lashed together by woody climbers like the forest in other parts. A narrow belt of dense wood, similar in character to these ilhas, and like them sharply limited along its borders, runs everywhere

Up the lake-side the shore was hidden under rolling clouds of smoke, the dark green of the woods was shrouded by the same bluish veil, and the air seemed full of distant crackling. Out of the veil of smoke as she watched broke a long leaping tongue of yellow flame, and the air blowing towards her seemed hot as a furnace. Her face paled before the terror in front. Though she had never seen the like before, on the way up to Fort Malsun, she had seen the blackened patches where such fires had been. She had heard stories of men surprised by them, and she knew that the forest full of dry deadfall and resinous trees, was on fire. Her first thought was for the sick man who was in her care. The camp was directly in the line of fire, and, if the wind kept up, must inevitably burn. She would have to get him away. But how?

Ottwell Binns
A Mating in the Wilds

He himself was agitated, confused, perplexed, and, most distinctly and painfully of all, he was wounded by a vague sense of injury--really hurt by a feeling that Doris had trifled with him, that she had not met his sincerity with the earnestness which he felt that he had a right to expect. He had spoken from his very heart; he had meant every word that he had said,--meant it as tenderly and as truly as the fondest, most faithful of elder brothers could speak to the most well-beloved of sisters. And yet Doris had turned from him carelessly, almost floutingly, with this light, meaningless talk about the mermaid's hair. In offended, wounded silence he gave the braided grass again into her hand, and she took it laughingly, and looked at it absently for a moment,--at this long, long, green, green grass springing from human dust,--and then she tossed it into the air so that the wind caught it, bore it a little way, and, tiring, softly laid it down on a tombstone, thus giving back its own to the dead.

Nancy Huston Banks
Oldfield

"I think," replied Annie, "that it is wild honeysuckle," and her voice trembled slightly. The perfumed night and the strange presence beside her went to the child's head a bit. The two walked along under the trees, which cast etching-like shadows in the broad moonlight, and neither talked much. There was scarcely a lighted window in any of the houses and they had a delicious sense of isolation,--the girl and the man awake in a sleeping world. Annie made no further allusion to Miss Wallingford. She had for almost the first time in her life a little selfish feeling that she did not wish to jar a perfect moment even with the contemplation of a friend's troubles. She was very happy walking beside Von Rosen, holding up her flimsy embroidered skirts carefully lest they come in contact with dewy grass. She had been admonished by her grandmother and her aunts so to do and reminded that the frail fabric would not endure much washing however skilful. Between the shadows, her lovely face showed like a white flower as Von Rosen looked down upon it. He wondered more and more that he had never noticed this exquisite young creature before. He did not yet dream of love in connection with her, but he was conscious of a passion of surprised admiration and protectiveness.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Butterfly House

About a mile to our front, and stretching to right and left as far as the eye could reach, appeared the high walls and the bastions of Delhi. The intervening space below was covered with a thick forest of trees and gardens, forming a dense mass of verdure, in the midst of which, and peeping out here and there in picturesque confusion, were the white walls and roofs of numerous buildings. Tall and graceful minarets, Hindoo temples and Mohammedan mosques, symmetrical in shape and gorgeous in colouring, appeared interspersed in endless numbers among the densely-packed houses inside the city, their domes and spires shining with a brilliant radiance, clear-cut against the sky. Above all, in the far distance towered the Jama Masjid, or Great Mosque, its three huge domes of pure white marble, with two high minarets, dwarfing into insignificance the buildings by which it was surrounded--surely, the noblest work of art ever built by man for the service of the Creator.

"I got to Newstead about 11 o'clock yesterday and found the steward, my namesake, and the butler waiting for me. The first, who is good-looking and a respectable old man of about sixty-five years, showed me over the house and grounds, which occupied two hours, for I was anxious to examine everything. But never was I more disappointed, for my notions, I suppose, had been raised to the romantic. I had surmised the possibly easy restoration of this once famous abbey, the mere skeleton of which is now fast crumbling to ruin. Lord Byron's immediate predecessor stripped the whole place of all that was splendid and interesting; and you may judge of what he must have done to the mansion when inform you that he converted the ground, which used to be covered with the finest trees, like a forest, into an absolute desert. Not a tree is left standing, and the wood thus shamefully cut down was sold in one day for £60,000. The hall of entrance has about eighteen large niches, which had been filled with statues, and the side walls covered with family portraits and armour. All these have been mercilessly torn down, as well as the magnificent fireplace, and sold. All the beautiful paintings which filled the galleries--valued at that day at £80,000--have disappeared, and the whole place is crumbling into dust. No sum short of £100,000 would make the place habitable. Lord Byron's few apartments contain some modern upholstery, but serve only to show what ought to have been there. They are now digging round the cloisters for a

succeeded by the softer linden, red bud, catalpa, and maple; and at the foot of the declivity, and in the bottom of the valley, wild shrubbery, interspersed with silver willows, and white poplars. Still following the path down the vale, in a southerly direction, one, at length, finds oneself in an amphitheatre, shut in on all sides by trees and bushes of a still greater variety; here and there, a gigantic and much begnarled oak; here, a triple-stemmed tulip tree of some eighty feet in height, its glossy, vivid green leaves and profuse blossoms presenting a picture of unsurpassed beauty and splendour; there, equally beautiful, though in marked contrast, a tall and slender silver birch. The floor of the amphitheatre is, for the most part, grass--soft, thick, velvety and miraculously green. The silence is such as makes it wholly inconceivable, that so vast a city as San Francisco can be little over six miles distant. Though one may strain one's ears to the utmost, nothing is to be heard but the occasional tinkling of a cow-bell, the lowing of cattle and the desultory note of birds. It is the perfect quiet which Nature alone can give; and it so impressed Hamar that he at once decided that this was the very spot essential for the ceremony of initiation into the Black Art.

After sailing a great part of the day through a forest of mulberry trees, planted with much regularity, we arrived on the 10th at the city of _Hang-tchoo-foo_, the capital of the province of _Tche-kiang_. Here that branch of the grand canal which communicates with the _Yang-tse-kiang_ terminates in a large commodious bason, at this time crowded with shipping. From this bason a number of smaller canals, passing through arches turned in the walls and intersecting the city in every direction, are finally united in a lake beyond the western wall called the _See-hoo_. The natural and artificial beauties of this lake far exceeded any thing we had hitherto had an opportunity of seeing in China. The mountains surrounding it were lofty and broken into a variety of forms that were highly picturesque; and the vallies were richly cloathed with trees of different kinds, among which three species were remarkably striking, not only by their intrinsic beauty, but also by the contrast they formed with themselves and the rest of the trees of the forest. These were the _Laurus Camphora_ or camphor tree, the _Croton sebiferum_ or tallow tree, and the _Thuia Orientalis_ or arbor vit. The bright shining green foliage of the first, mingled with the purple leaves of the second, and overtopped by the tall and stately _tree of life_, of the deepest green, produced a pleasing effect to the eye; and the landscape was rendered still more interesting to the mind, by the very singular and diversified appearance of several repositories of the

John Barrow
Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to Canton

Through the tree-tops a pale light falls down upon the forest-path and upon the dark undergrowth of bush and shrubbery. The moon sprinkles the pathway with shimmering spots, and kindles strange lights in the mass of leaves and branches. Here, the blue streaks of light pour down from the tree-trunks like streams of burning spirits; there, in the hollow, the broad fern-branches gleam from out the darkness in colors of emerald gold, and over the pathway the withered boughs tower like huge whitened antlers. But between and beneath, impenetrable, Stygian gloom. Round-faced moon in heaven, thine attempts to light this wood of ours are feeble, sickly, and capricious. Pray keep thy scanty light upon the highway leading to the city; throw thy faded beams not so crookedly before us, for at the left the ground slopes precipitately into morass and water.

Gustav Freytag
The Lost Manuscript

had no power over him whatever, I was obliged to run back for one of the guns to shoot him.  On my return it was laughable to see the pace at which he was running away with the two men, who were holding on to his tail like grim death, the elephant not having ceased roaring during the run.  I accordingly settled him, and returned to have a little conversation with the rascals were still perched in the trees.  I was extremely annoyed, as these people, if they had possessed a grain of sense, might have tied their long comboys (cotton cloths about eight feet long) together, and we might have thus secured the elephant without difficulty by tying his hind legs.  It was a great loss, as he was so tame that he might have been domesticated and driven to Newera Ellia without the slightest trouble.  All this was occasioned by the cowardice of these villainous Cingalese, and upon my lecturing one fellow on his conduct he began to laugh. This was too much for any person's patience, and I began to look for a stick, which the fellow perceiving he immediately started off through the forest like a deer.  He could run faster than I could, being naked and having the advantage of bare feet; but I knew I could run him down in the course of time, especially as, being in a fright, he would  soon get blown.  We had a most animated hunt through water, mud, roots of trees, open forest and all kinds of ground, but I ran into him at last in heavy ground, and I dare say he recollects the day of the month.

He had been up to see a patient among the Glenoro hills, and was driving homeward.  The road was a narrow, lonely one, winding here and there through the dense wood.  On either side the trees and underbrush made a towering green wall.  Through it the eye could catch occasional glimpses of the flower-spangled earth, or a vista of splendid trunks with the sunlight making golden splashes on their spreading boughs. Gilbert pulled up Speed and drove slowly.  Her hoofs made but a smothered pad, pad in the soft leaf-mold.  The air was cool, and laden with the delicious scents of moss and bracken and leaf-strewn earth. Far away in the green depths a whitethroat was sending forth his long, clear, silvery call, in endless praise of "Canada!  Canada!  Canada!" As Gilbert turned a curve in the road a figure appeared ahead, a figure that seemed to add the finishing touch to the almost perfect scene--a girl, her arms full of marigolds, walking along the flower-bordered pathway.

Marian Keith
Treasure Valley

The figures of the second series (Fig. 278) are nearly all painted upon low round nodes placed about the body of the alligator vases and hence are inclosed in circles (see Fig. 197). The animal figure in the first example is coiled up like a serpent, but still preserves some of the well known characters of the alligator. In the second example we have a double hook near the center of the space which takes the place of the body, but the dotted triangles are placed separately against the encircling line. In he next figure the body symbol is omitted and the three triangles remain to represent the animal. In the fourth there are four triangles, and the body device, being restored in red, takes the form of a cross. In the fifth two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within the bars of the cross, the triangles becoming mere interspaces; and in the seventh the dots form a line between the two encircling lines. This series could be filled up by other examples, thus showing by what infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. The round nodes upon which these medallion-like figures are drawn are survivals of the heads or other parts of animals originally modeled in the round, but in the processes of manufacture partially or wholly atrophied. It was sought to preserve the idea of the creature by the use of painted details, but these, as we have seen, were also in time reduced to formal marks, symbols doubtless in many cases of the

William Henry Holmes
Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia

Time is to us now no more than it was to the oak; we have no consciousness of it. Only we feel the broad earth beneath us, and as to the ancient giant, so there passes through us a sense of strength renewing itself, of vital energy flowing into the frame. It may be an hour, it may be two hours; when without the aid of sound or sight we become aware by an indescribable supersensuous perception that living creatures are approaching. Sit up without noise and look--there is a herd of deer feeding down the narrow valley close at hand within a stone's-throw. And these are deer indeed, no puny creatures, but the 'tall deer' that William the Conqueror loved 'as if he were their father.' Fawns are darting here and there, frisking round the does. How many may there be in this herd?--fifty, perhaps more; nor is this a single isolated instance, but dozens more of such herds may be found in this true old English forest, all running free and unconstrained. But the sun gets low. Following this broad green drive, it leads us past vistas of endless glades going no man knows where into shadow and gloom, past grand old oaks, past places where the edge of a veritable wilderness comes up to the trees--a wilderness of gnarled hawthorn trunks of unknown ages, of holly with shining metallic-green leaves, and hazel-bushes. Past tall trees bearing the edible chestnut in prickly clusters, past maples which in a little while will be painted in crimson and gold, with the deer peeping out of the fern everywhere, and once perhaps catching a glimpse of a shy,

Walter Besant
The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies

Accordingly I left Mrs. Baker with my horse and a spare rifle to wait, while the party marched straight on; I intended to make a circuit through the jungle and to wait for the entrance of the herd, which she was to drive, by simply riding through the plain and leading my horse; she was to bring the horse to me should I fire a shot. After walking for about a mile in the jungle parallel with the plain, I saw the herd of about two hundred Tetel going at full gallop from the open ground into the jungle, having been alarmed by the red bags and the Turks, who had crossed over the marsh. So shy were these antelopes that there was no possibility of stalking them. I noticed however that there were several waterbucks in the very centre of the marsh, and that two or three trees afforded the possibility of a stalk. Having the wind all right, I succeeded in getting to a tree within about two hundred and fifty yards of the largest buck, and lying down in a dry trench that in the wet season formed a brook, I crept along the bottom until I reached a tall tuft of grass that was to be my last point of cover. Just as I raised myself slowly from the trench I found the buck watching me most attentively. A steady shot with my little No. 24 rifle took no effect-it was too high:-the buck did not even notice the shot, which was, I suppose, the first he had ever heard;-he was standing exactly facing me; this is at all tines an unpleasant position for a shot. Seeing that he did not seem disposed to move, I reloaded without firing my left-hand

Sir Samuel White Baker
The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile

"The beautiful is past!" said the carriage, and the same sigh passed through the whole of nature, and from the human heart it sounded: "The beautiful is past! with the delightful green forest, with the warm sunshine, and the song of birds--past! past!" So it said, and so it creaked in the trunks of the tall trees, and there was heard a sigh, so inwardly deep, a sigh direct from the heart of the wild rose-bush, and he who sat there was the rose-king. Do you know him! he is of a pure breed, the finest red-green breed: he is easily known. Go to the wild rose hedges, and in autumn, when all the flowers are gone, and the red hips alone remain, one often sees amongst these a large red-green moss-flower: that is the rose-king. A little green leaf grows out of his head--that is his feather: he is the only male person of his kind on the rose-bush, and he it was who sighed.

"I should like to give you an idea of the sort of scenery we met with. Starting from the ship, we began to force our way under the branches and amongst dense bushes, till we got into a part where the trees were much loftier, and the lower branches were level with the surface of the water, most of them covered with flowers.  Besides the plums we found bunches of delicious fruit growing on the branches of a smaller species of palm.  Frequently we heard the rattle of leaves overhead and caught sight of troops of monkeys peeping down among the thick foliage. Paddling on among the lofty trunks which rose like columns out of the water, presently down came a shower of leaves, and on looking up, we discovered a flock of parrots or a family of trogons, large gaily-coloured birds, with clamorous voices and heavy flight, who made the branches shake as they alighted to seize the fruit pendent from them.  Palm-trees of various species prevailed; there was no underwood, or it had been destroyed by water, but the sipos or vines hung in dense masses among the upper branches.  I wish that I could describe the wonderful birds we saw, one perfectly black, with a headdress like an umbrella, while some lovely specimens of the feathered tribe had white wings and claret-coloured plumage.  Flowers were of all hues, and of immense size; some of the more lofty trees were literally covered with clusters of rich golden flowers.  On the decayed trunks we caught sight of crabs of every variety of tint and size, watching for their prey,

W.H.G. Kingston
The Three Lieutenants

"Yes, it will, if you turn it away all day long.  Look, Harry, if you were to go straight on in this direction, you would come to a Laplander, harnessing his broad-horned reindeer to his sledge.  He's at it now, I daresay.  If you were to go in this line exactly, you would go through the smoke and fire of a burning mountain in a land of ice.  If you were to go this way, straight on, you would find yourself in the middle of a forest with a lion glaring at your feet, for it is dark night there now, and so hot!  And over there, straight on, there is such a lovely sunset.  The top of a snowy mountain is all pink with light, though the sun is down -- oh! such colours all about, like fairyland!  And there, there is a desert of sand, and a camel dying, and all his companions just disappearing on the horizon.  And there, there is an awful sea, without a boat to be seen on it, dark and dismal, with huge rocks all about it, and waste borders of sand -- so dreadful!"

George MacDonald
David Elginbrod

After a time the Rajah discovered that some one had plucked some of his favorite lotus flowers. People were set to watch, and all the wise men in the kingdom put their heads together to try and discover the thief, but without avail. At last the excitement about this matter being very great, the Rajah's second son, a brave and noble young Prince (brother to him who had found the eldest Princess in the forest) said, "I will certainly discover this thief." It chanced that several fine trees grew around the tank. Into one of these the young Prince climbed one evening (having made a sort of light thatched roof across two of the boughs, to keep off the heavy dews), and there he watched all the night through, but with no more success than his predecessors. There lay the lotus plants, still in the moonlight, without so much as a thieving wind coming by to break off one of the flowers. The Prince began to get very sleepy, and thought the delinquent, whoever he might be, could not intend to return, when, in the very early morning, before it was light, who should come down to the tank but an old woman he had often seen near the palace gate. "Aha!" thought the Prince, "this then is the thief; but what can this queer old woman want with lotus flowers?" Imagine his astonishment when the old woman sat down on the steps of the tank and began pulling the skin off her face and arms, and from underneath the shriveled yellow skin came the loveliest face he had ever beheld! So fair, so fresh, so young, so gloriously beautiful, that, appearing thus

M. Frere
Old Deccan Days

We moved, I say, towards the shore, Billy keeping our course pretty straight by plying the spar now on the right side, now on the left. And then I perceived a shine upon the water, and, looking back, saw the blessed sun as a ruddy disk, but like the moon in size, glimmering through the mist behind us.  Billy hailed the sunrise with a cheerful shout, which did my heart good to hear it, and cried to me that the mist was lifting, and we should soon see the land clear.  And so it was, though when we did behold it, we did not much like the look of it. From the edge of the sea it rose to a considerable height, and it was of a grey colour, or rather slate, and yet not quite that either, but approaching to black.  To the right the slope was covered with vegetation, and about half way-up there was what in the distance--for we were, as I reckoned, near a mile from the shore--looked to be a dense wood, as indeed it afterwards proved.  Still further to the right a promontory of a reddish colour jutted out into the sea, and I perceived that the water ran right through it by an archway, which I suppose the sea had cut for itself, for I could not conceive it had been made in any other way.  This promontory also was green at the top with plants and trees, and beyond it we could see a rock of the same red colour, which appeared to be of very great size, like to an immense iceberg, but much broader than any I have seen.  To the left of the blackish slope that I have before mentioned there were other patches of

Herbert Strang
Palm Tree Island

As night approached, the weather suddenly changed, dark clouds gathering in the sky.  The thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the wind blew with a force which threatened to drive the schooner on the tree-fringed shore.  We shortened sail, and endeavoured to gain the eastern bank, where we might have anchored in comparative safety.  The generally calm surface of the river was broken into foaming seas, which dashed up over us, while the schooner heeled over to the blast. Sometimes I thought that our voyage would end in our being carried to the bottom to become the food of alligators.  Before, however, so undesirable a catastrophe happened, our skipper bore up and ran for a creek on the western shore, with the navigation of which he was fortunately acquainted.  After tearing along for a few minutes before the wind, we saw by the fast waning light an opening in the trees, towards which we steered, the branches almost catching our rigging. After lowering every stitch of canvas, we ran on a short time longer, and, rounding a point, brought up in what had the appearance of a lagoon, under the lee of some tall trees.  Darkness suddenly came down upon us,--such darkness as I had never before witnessed, making the flashes of lightning which darted through the air, and crackled among the cypress-trees, appear still more vivid.  The thunder crashed louder than ever; the wind roared and howled through the forest.  The judge's wife sat in her cabin, holding her boy in her arms and trying to quiet

W.H.G. Kingston
In the Wilds of Florida