I.
The beeches push high upon the declivities, even beyond three thousand feet. Their huge pillars strike down into the hollows where earth is gathered. Their roots enter into the clefts of the rock, lift it, and come creeping to the surface like a family of snakes. Their skin, white and tender in the plains, is changed into a grayish and solid bark; their tenacious leaves shine with a vigorous green, beneath the sun which cannot penetrate them. They live isolated, because they need space, and range themselves at intervals one above another like lines of towers. From afar, between the dull heather, their mound rises splendid with light, and sounds with its hundred thousand leaves as with so many little bells of horn.