THE ASPEN.
All lovers of nature admire the Aspen on account of its name, which, like that of the willow, is poetical, both from its musical sound and from association. There is no tree more celebrated in emblematical literature than the Aspen. Its sensitiveness to the least movement of the wind, its restless motions, as if some morbid occasion of disquiet unceasingly attended it, have given it a place in the poetry of all nations. But setting aside its symbolical meanings, its suggestions of fickleness and caprice, of levity and irresolution, of impatience and instability, and the use that has been made of it in satirical writings to symbolize the “inconstant temper of woman,” the beauty and motion of its foliage alone would always attract admiration. As the Aspen is the only tree whose leaf trembles when the wind is apparently calm, its gentle rustling is always associated with still summer weather.