I am not to be understood as praising the pine at the expense of other trees. All things considered, no evergreen can be equal to a summer-green, on which we see the leaves budding, unfolding, ripening, and falling,—a "worlde whiche neweth everie daie." What would winter be worth without the naked branches of maples and elms, beeches and oaks? We speak of them sadly:
"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."
But the sadness is of a pleasing sort, that could ill be spared by any who know the pleasures of sentiment and sober reflection. But though one tree differeth from another tree in glory, we may surely rejoice in them all. One ministers to our mood to-day, another to-morrow.
"I hate those trees that never lose their foliage; They seem to have no sympathy with Nature; Winter and summer are alike to them."
So says Ternissa, in Landor's dialogue. I know what she means. But I do not "hate" an impassive, unchangeable temper, whether in a tree or in a man. I have so little of such a spirit myself that I am glad to see some tokens of it—not too frequent, indeed, nor too self-assertive—in the world about me. And so I say, let me never be, for any long time together, where there are no Weymouth pines at which I may gaze from afar, or under which I may lie and listen. They boast not (rare stoics!), but they set us a brave example. No "blasts that blow the poplar white" can cause the pine-tree to blanch. No frost has power to strip it of a single leaf. Its wood is soft, but how dauntless its spirit!—a truly encouraging paradox, lending itself, at our private need, to endless consolatory moralizings. The great majority of my brothers must be comforted, I think, by any fresh reminder that the battle is not to the strong.
For myself, then, like the lowly partridge-berry vine, I would be always the pine-tree's neighbor. Who knows but by lifelong fellowship with it I may absorb something of its virtue? Summer and winter, its fragrant breath rises to heaven; and of it we may say, with more truth than Landor said of the over-sweet fragrance of the linden, "Happy the man whose aspirations are pure enough to mingle with it!"