His domestic
undertakings seem to imply a longer existence than those of ordinary
men; none are so apt to build and plant for future centuries, as
noble-spirited men, who have received their heritages from foregone
ages.
I cannot but applaud, therefore, the fondness and pride with which I
have noticed English gentlemen, of generous temperaments, and high
aristocratic feelings, contemplating those magnificent trees, which
rise like towers and pyramids, from the midst of their paternal lands.
There is an affinity between all nature, animate and inanimate: the
oak, in the pride and lustihood of its growth, seems to me to take its
range with the lion and the eagle, and to assimilate, in the grandeur
of its attributes, to heroic and intellectual man. With its mighty
pillar rising straight and direct towards heaven, bearing up its leafy
honours from the impurities of earth, and supporting them aloft in
free air and glorious sunshine, it is an emblem of what a true
nobleman _should be_; a refuge for the weak, a shelter for the
oppressed, a defence for the defenceless; warding off from them the
peltings of the storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power. He
who is _this_, is an ornament and a blessing to his native land.
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