THE PINE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 238, 17 October 1901, Page 4

THE PINE.

iTo the Editor of the luiio.i Silo-In regard w the subject of the hue ' Trinity Pints. 1 beg you to give the opinion of England's greatest Art. and Art m Mature i critic, the late .lohn Rnskin, to whose 1 inemorv a simple and beautiful memonal ; ha- just been erected at Friars’ Crag, ires- j wick. Many of your read rs who revere the i beautiful, will acknowledge their indebted- j ness to voiir kindness tit’ the many marked adaptations of nature to the mind of ; man, it sa puis one of the most singular, that i trees intended especially tor the adornment of the wildest mountains should be. in broad outline, the most foinuil of trees. The vine, which is to be the coni minion of man, is waywardly docile in its growth, falling into festoons beside his cornfields, or rooting Ins garden walks, or casting its shadow all summer upon his door. Associated always with the trim ness of cultivation, it introduces all possible elements of sweet wilderness. The nine, plac'd nearly always among scones ,I,sor'd..red and desolate, brings into them all possible elements of coder and precision. Lowland tries may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow bre-ege unit bends them, or a bank of cowslips from which their trunks bum aslope. hint let storm an cl avalanche do tit* tr worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to. it will nevertheless grow straight. Tinust a rod from its last shoot down the st- in—it shall point to the centre of the earth as long as the tree lives. ) wi'-h the reader to iix his attention for a moment on these two great character- of the pine, its straightness and rounded per fticiness ; both are wonderful, and in their i=sue lovely, though tlic-y liave hitherto prevented the tree from being drawn. 1 say, first, its straightness. Because we see it in the wildest .scenery, we are apt to remember ! only as characteristic examples ot it tnosc which have been disturbed by violent accident or disease. Of course, such instances are frequent. The soil of the pine is subject to continual change: perhaps the rock in which it is rooted splits in frost and falls forward, throwing the young stems aslope, or the whole mass of c-arth around it is undermined bv rain, or a huge boulder lulls on its

stem from above, and forces it for twenty years to yyow with a weight of a couple of tons leaning on Us side. Hence., especially at edges of loose cliffs, about watertails, or at glacier banks, and in oilier places liable to disturbance, the pine may be seen distorted and oblique. Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and sway of the ground, clothe it with soft compliance, arc partly its subjects, partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. jJut the pine rises in serene resistance, selfcontained; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine cliff, far from all home or work of men, looking up to its companies of pine, as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of the one beside it—upright, fixed, spectral, as troops of ghosts standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other —dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to them ; —those trees never heard human voice ; they are far above ail sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs. All comfortless they stand, between two eternities of the Vacancy and the Hock; yet with such iron wilt, that the rock itself looks Lent and shattered beside them —fragile, weak, inconsistent. compared to their dark energy of delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride— unnumbered, unconquerable. Then note, further, their perfectness. The 1 impression on most people’s minds must have ' been received more from pictures than reality, so far as 1 can judge ; —so ragged they think the pine; whereas its chief character in health is green and full roundness. It stands compact, like one of its own cones, slightly curved on its sides, finished and quaint as a carved tree in some Elizabethan garden ; and instead of being wild in expression, forms the softest of ail forest scenery; for other trees show their trunks and twisting boughs; but the pine growing either in luxuriant mass or in happy isolation. allows no branch to bo seen. Summit behind summit rises it pyramidal ranges, or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of boughs; so that there is nothing but green cone and green carpet. Nor is it only softer, but in one sense more cheerful than any other foliage : for it casts only a pyramidal shadow. Lowland forest, arches overhead, and chequers the ground with darkness; but the pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades, between emerald-bright. Its gloom is all its own ; narrowing into the sky, it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew. And then the third character which I want you to notice in the pine is its exquisite fineness. Other trees rise against the sky in dots and knots, but this in fringes. You never see the edges of it, so subtle are they ; and for this reason—it alone of trees, so far as 1 know, is capable of the fiery change, noticed by Shakespeare. Whin the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine, provided ths ridge beat at a distance of about two mile ■. and seen clear, ;.ll the trees, for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun, become trees of light, seen in clear Ha me against the darker sky. and dazzling as the sun itselc. I thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of toe leaves ; but I believe now it is caused by the cloud-dew* upon them—every minutest le.-i carrying its diamond. It seems as if there trees, living always among the clouds, had caught part of their glory from them ; an i themselves the darkest of vegetation, cou.d yet add splendour to the sun itself.” From modern painters by J. Buskin.—l am, etc., J. H. Wilson. P..S —As Buskin’s writings remain in expensive form, the above may be useful to oui Beautifying Association membet