Thus the grandeur of these forests may be due to expanse and volume, depth of color, sunlight and shade, or to effects borrowed from the clouds. Finally, we notice another kind of grandeur when coniferous forests are visited by storms. First comes the moaning of the wind, mysterious and unsearchable, and different from the roar and rush that sweeps through the broadleaf woods. Then follows the uneasy communication from tree to tree, a trembling that spreads from section to section. When the rush of the wind finally strikes the tall, straight forms they do not sway their arms about as wildly as do the maples, elms, or tulip trees, but bend and sway throughout their length and rock majestically.
A Thicket of White Firs
Not in outward aspect alone are these forests noble and stately. A nobleness lies in the nature of the living trees themselves; for, though we may call them unconscious, it is life still, and they are expressive with meaning. Far simpler in their habits and requirements than the broadleaf trees, they are, nevertheless, more generous to man. Endurance and hardship is their lot, but noble form of trunk and crown and useful soft wood are the products of their life. There is no forest mantle like theirs to shield from the blast, especially when it is formed of young thickets of the simple but refined spruces and firs. When, at the last, they yield their life to man, it seems to me there is something exalted even in the manner of their fall. The tree hardly quivers under the blows of the ax; a mere trembling in the outermost twigs, and then, hardly as if cut off from the source of life, the tall, straight form sinks slowly to the earth.
Another common attribute of evergreen forests is their characteristic silence. Birds do not frequent them as much as the leafy forests. In these solitudes, far removed from village and farm, there is often no sound but the ring of the distant ax and the sough of the wind. In winter, as we push through the thickets of small spruces or hemlocks, or stand for a while beneath lofty pines, while all around is muffled in snow, the silence seems sanctified and vaster than elsewhere.
In addition to their grandeur and sublimity, and their silence, they are distinguished for an element of softness. This is seen in the delicate texture and pure color of their foliage, the effect of which is heightened by being massed in the dense forest. We have already noticed the mild olive shade of the eastern white pine. When the wind blows through it, it seems as if the foliage were melting away. It would be difficult, also, to match the green color of the red fir, especially as it looks in winter; or the luxuriant bluish-gray of the western blue spruce.
A further softening in the general effect of evergreen forests is produced by the manner in which the trees intermingle in the dense mass, merging their sharp, individual outlines in the rounded contours and upper surfaces of the combined view. Near at hand, of course, we cannot but notice the attenuated forms and jagged edges of the trees, which, indeed, are interesting enough in themselves; but on looking gradually into the distance we find them thatching into one another, closing up interstices and smoothing away irregularities in a remarkable way. This is particularly true of the spruces and firs; but in some of the opener pine forests, as, for example, in the longleaf pines of the South, the boughs and crowns themselves are rounded into masses and pleasing contours. It should be remembered, also, that these effects are present in winter as well as in summer.
The element of softness is sometimes brought into very beautiful association with certain effects of mists and clouds. The indistinct contours and delicate lights of the drifting vapors and cloud forms, as they wander across the trees, blend with the serene aspect of the forest. At other times the clouds gather into banks and lie motionless in some valley or rest like a veil upon the mountain tops. Wordsworth has described these effects in his graphic way by saying,—
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,