oval of one of its pillars. Hence we
may understand the charm of that irregularity that prevails in the forms
of vegetation. If we remove a branch from an Elm or an Oak, or even from
an Ash, we destroy no positive symmetry; it is like removing a stone
from a loose stone wall; we do but slightly modify its disproportions.

The White Pine may be selected as the American representative of the
pyramidal trees, being the most important as well as the most striking
in its appearance. It is a Northern tree, not extending so far south as
the region of the Cypress and Magnolia, and attaining perfection only on
the northeastern part of the continent. In the New England States, it
contributes more than any other species to the beauty of our landscapes,
where it is commonly seen in scattered groups, but not often as a
solitary standard. We see it in our journeys, projecting over eminences
that are skirted by old roads, shading the traveller from the sun and
protecting him from the wind. We have sat under its fragrant shade, in
our pedestrian tours, when, weary with heat and exercise, we sought its
gift of coolness, and blessed it as one of the benign deities of the
forest. We are familiar with it in all pleasant and solitary places; and
in our afternoon rambles we have listened, underneath its boughs, to the
plaintive note of the Green Warbler, who selects it for his abode, and
who has caught a melancholy tone from the winds that from immemorial
time have tuned to soft music its long sibilant leaves.

The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude
and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds
grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to
the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting
cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow
ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts
nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its
terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements.
Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of
Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast,
elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate
Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of
Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy
of foliage mixing with th