In
countless thousands the winged seeds float down the south-west gales
from the older trees; and every seed which falls takes root in ground
which, however unable to bear broad-leaved trees, is ready by long
rest for the seeds of the needle-leaved ones. Thousands perish
yearly; but the eastward march of the whole, up hill and down dale,
is sure and steady as that of Lynceus' Goths in Goethe's Helena:-
'Ein lang und breites Volkegewicht,
Der erate wusste vom letzen nicht.
Der erste fiel, der zweite stand,
Des dritten Lanze war zur Hand,
Ein jeder hundertfach gestarkt;
Erschlagene Tausend unbemerkt -
- till, as you stand upon some eminence, you see, stretching to the
eastward of each tract of older trees, a long cloud of younger ones,
like a green comet's tail--I wish their substance was as yielding
this day. Truly beautiful--grand indeed to me it is--to see young
live Nature thus carrying on a great savage process in the heart of
this old and seemingly all-artificial English land; and reproducing
here, as surely as in the Australian bush, a native forest, careless
of mankind.
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