anderers just related,--namely, that they possess the
faculty of speech.

Tasso, the author of a well-known metrical history, states distinctly,
as you shall see in half a moment, that a tree upon one occasion
discoursed with Major General Tancred,--

"Pur tragge alfin la spada e con gran forza
Percuote l' alta pianta. Oh, maraviglia!
----quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente
Un indistinto gemito dolente,
Che poi _distinto in voci_."

And then it goes on to tell the General how it once rejoiced in
extensive hoops, wore a coal-scuttle on its head, and rubbed its face
with prepared chalk,--(w-w-w-hy! what _was_ I saying? such a mistake! I
should say)--was a woman by the name of Clorinda, and is still animated
and sentient both in trunk and limbs, and that he will presently be
guilty of murder, if he continues to hack her with his sword.

The celebrated explorer, Sir John Mandeville, relates in the history
of his discoveries that he heard whole groves of trees talking _to one
another_. And when we come down to the present day, R.W. Emerson, of
Concord, asseverates that trees have conversed with him,--that they
speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, and several other
languages perfectly,--

"Mountain speech to Highlanders,
Ocean tongues to islanders,"--

and that he himself was on one occasion transformed into a Pine (_Pinus
rigida_) and talked quite a large volume of philosophy while in that
condition. Walter Whitman, Esq., author of "Leaves of Grass," relates
similar personal experience. Tennyson, (Alfred,) now the Laureate of
England, and upon whom the University of Oxford, a few years ago,
conferred the title of Doctor of Laws, gives us a long conversation he
once held with an Oak, reporting the exact words it said to him: they
are excellent English, and corroborate what I said above respecting the
wisdom of trees.

If all this evidence, and I might add much more equally conclusive, did
I think it necessary, does not, O skeptic, convince you of the humanity
of trees, why, let me say that you hold for true a hundred things not
based upon half so good testimony as this,--that I have seen juries
persuaded of facts, and bring in verdicts in accordance with them, not
nearly so well authenticated as these,--and that I have heard clergymen
preach sermons two hours long, constructed out of arguments which they
positively persisted you should regard as decisive, that were, to say
the least, no _bett