Ils étendent vers nous leurs rameaux altérés."
Casimir Delavigne, Le Paria, iii. 6.
A note of the publishers on the preceding passage, in the edition of 1855, is diverting:
"Un journaliste allemand a accusé M. Casimir Delavigne d'avoir pris pour un arbre une secte religieuse de l'Inde...." The German journalist was wrong here, but he might have found plenty of matter for ridicule in the play. Thus the Brahmins (men) are Akebar (!), Idamore (!!), and Empsael (!!!); their women Néala (?), Zaide (!), and Mirza (!!).
1825.—"Near this village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connexion with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, 'What a noble place of worship!'"—Heber, ii. 93 (ed. 1844).
1834.—"Cast forth thy word into the everliving, everworking universe; it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove—(perhaps alas! as a hemlock forest) after a thousand years."—Sartor Resartus.
1856.—
"... its pendant branches, rooting in the air,
Yearn to the parent earth and grappling fast,
Grow up huge stems again, which shooting forth