The family of conifers shows a special characteristic. In them I perceive not only a ramification of the trunk into branches, but also their articulation on a stem that rises straight and single,—an articulation which gradually multiplies into threadlike leaves. The fir-tree is typical of such a class, with the symmetrical intersections of its branches, whose essential plan is simply a perpendicular crossed by a graded series of horizontal lines.
This type includes many variations in the different regions of the world. The most interesting is that of the pines I studied in Japan.
Rather than the rigidity usual to wood, the trunk appears to have a fleshy elasticity. Under the tension on the strong, cylindrical stem of compact fibers, its sheath splits and the rough bark, divided into pentagonal scales,—with deep cracks between them from which resin oozes abundantly,—expands in tough layers. And if, through the suppleness of its jointless body, the trunk yields to the exterior forces which violently assail it or seductively allure it, the tree resists by its inherent energy; and the drama of its pathetic struggle is written in the tormented twisting of its boughs.
Thus, along the tragic old road to Tokkaido, I have seen the pines sustain the onslaught of the powers of the air. In vain the wind of the ocean lays them low. Clinging with every root to the stony soil, the invincible trees writhe, twist upon themselves, and,—like a man braced on all fours, who butts with his head, kicks in all directions, and hunches himself together,—they seem to grapple with the antagonist, to re-establish themselves, and to straighten up under the Protean assaults of the monster who would overcome them. All along the solemn beach I have passed their heroic lines in review on this somber evening, and watched all the vicissitudes of the battle. One leans backward, and stretches toward the sky a monstrous panoply of halberds and shields which he brandishes in Briarean fists; another, full of wounds, mutilated as by blows of clubs, and bristling on all sides with jagged stumps, still wars and waves a few feeble boughs; another, which seems thrown upon its back, still battling against the dust, maintains itself on the powerful buttress of its gathered haunches; and finally, I saw giants and princes who, massively settling upon their muscular loins, by the reiterated efforts of their Herculean arms, continued to hold their ground on all sides against the tumultuous enemy.
I have still to speak of the foliage.
If I compare to the pines the species of trees that flourish in fertile earth, in rich and mellow soil, I discover these four characteristics in them; that the proportion of leaf to wood is greater; that the leaf is deciduous; that, flattened, it shows an obverse and reverse side; and, finally, that the foliage, growing upon the boughs, diverging from a common center, is arranged like a single bouquet.
The pine grows in dry and stony soil; therefore its absorption of the elements which nourish it is less immediate, and necessitates on its part a stronger and completer elaboration, a greater functional activity,—and, if I may so put it, more personal. As it is limited in its supply of water, it does not expand like a chalice. This one that I observe divides its foliage, spreads a handful on every side. Instead of leaves which receive the rain, these are tufts of little tubes which reach into the surrounding dampness and absorb it. And that is why,—independent of the seasons, sensitive to more continuous and subtle influences,—the pine shows a perennial foliage.
Thus I explain the aerial character of its foliage, fragmentarily suspended. As the pine lends the irregular outline of its boughs to the lines of the harmonious landscape, better to enhance the charm and the brilliancy of Nature, it also spreads everywhere the shadow of its singular tufts; over the power and the glory of Ocean, blue in the sun; over the harvest fields; and obstructing the design of the constellations or the dawn upon the sky. It sweeps its branches beneath azalea bushes flaming near the surface of lakes blue as gentian, or above the steep embankments of the imperial city, close to the silver, grass-grown waters of the canals; and the evening on which I saw Fuji like a colossus, like a virgin throned in the clarity of the Infinite, the dark tuft of a pine was silhouetted against the dove-colored mountain.
THE ARCH OF GOLD IN THE FOREST
When I left Yeddo the great sun was flaming in the clear sky. Toward the end of the afternoon, arriving at the junction of Utsonomiya, I perceive that a shadow has darkened all the sunset. Composed of huge, heaped-up clouds, it presents that tumultuous and chaotic aspect that a sky sometimes shows when, like the veiled fire of footlights, a gleaming streak on the horizon throws long shadows across the dim fields, bringing out each object in clear relief. Drowsing on the wharf just now, and for a long time in the train moving westward, I have been a spectator of the decline of day and the gradual deepening of darkness. With one glance I have caught the whole plan of the country. In the background, deep forests and the folds of cumbrous mountains; in the foreground, detached footpaths which bar the way, one behind the other, like spaced and parallel barriers. Where the trenches we follow show us a cross-section of the earth, we see first a fine mold, black as coal; then yellow sand; and finally clay, red with sulphur or cinnabar. Avernus spreads out before us! Does not this scorching sun, this low sky, this surrounding harshness of volcanoes and fir-trees, correspond to that black abyss from which the visions of dreams arise? Indeed it was with a royal wisdom that the ancient shogun, Ieyasu, chose this place for his disembodied spirit to enter the kingdom of shades, and, by dissolving in silence into their shadows, transmute death into godhead as a temple is created of a tomb.