Nothing in the solar system suggests such a mixture of emotion as the felling of a great tree. In a way, it is pleasant and exhilarating, or why was Mr. Gladstone so fond of the exercise? And why were we so eager to stay until the second tree was down? Richard Jefferies, who hated to destroy things, and often could not bring himself to pull the trigger of his gun, nevertheless felt the fascination8 of the axe9. ‘Much as I admired the timber about the Chace,’ he says, ‘I could not help sometimes wishing to have a chop at it. The pleasure of felling trees is never lost. In youth, in manhood, so long as the arm can wield10 the axe, the enjoyment11 is equally keen. As the heavy tool passes over the shoulder, the impetus12 of the swinging motion lightens the weight, and something like a thrill passes through the sinews. Why is it so pleasant to strike? What secret instinct is it that makes the delivery of a blow with axe or hammer so exhilarating?’ What indeed! For certainly a wild delight makes the heart beat faster, and sends the blood bounding through the veins13, as one sees the axes flash, the chips fly, the gash14 grow deeper, and 229notices at last the first slow movement of the glorious tree.
And yet I confess that, mixed with this pungent15 sense of pleasure, there was a still deeper emotion. The thing seems so irreparable. It is easy enough to destroy these monarchs16 of the bush, but who can restore them to their former grandeur17? It must have been this sense of sadness that led Beaconsfield—Gladstone’s famous protagonist—to ordain18 in his will that none of his beloved trees at Hughenden should ever be cut down. How long had these trees stood here, these two giants that had been in a few moments reduced to humiliating horizontality? I cannot tell. They must have been here when all these hills and valleys were peopled only by the aboriginals19. They saw the black man prowl about the bush. From the hill here, overlooking the bay, they must have seen Captain Cook’s ships cast anchor down the stream. They watched the coming of the white men; they saw the convict ships arrive with their dismal20 freight of human wretchedness; they witnessed the swift and tragic21 extermination22 of the native race; they beheld23 a nation spring into being at their feet! Did the great trees know that, as the white men exterminated25 the black men, so the white men would exterminate24 them? Did they feel that the coming of those strange vessels26 up the bay sealed 230their own doom27? Before the new-comers could build their homes, or lay out their farms, or plant their orchards28, they must make war on the trees with fire and axe. Homes and nations can only be built by sacrifice, and the trees are the innocent victims.
I suppose that the sadness arises partly from the fact that the forest is Man’s oldest and most faithful friend, and one towards whom he is inclined to turn with ever-increasing reverence29 and affection as the years go by. With the advance of the years we all turn wistfully back to the things that charmed our infancy30, and the race obeys that selfsame primal31 law. Almost every nation on the face of the earth traces its history back to the forest primaeval. From the forest we sprang; and by the forest we were originally sustained. And even when at length the primitive32 race issued from those leafy recesses33 and devoted34 itself to agriculture and to commerce, men still regarded their ancient fastnesses as the storehouse from which they drew everything that was essential to their progress and development. Man found the forest his warehouse35, his factory, his armoury, his all. With logs that he felled in the bush he built his first primitive home; out of branches that he tore from the trees he fashioned his first implements36 and tools; and when the tranquillity37 that brooded over his pastoral simplicity38 231was broken by the shout of discord39 and the noise of tumult40, it was to those selfsame woods that he rushed for his first crude weapons of defence. Architecture, agriculture, invention, and military ingenuity41 have each of them made enormous strides since then; but it was in the bush that each of these potent42 makers43 of our destiny was born. And did not John Smeaton confess that he borrowed from the graceful44 curve of the oak as it rises from the ground the main idea that characterized the construction of the Eddystone lighthouse? Whenever the architect, the farmer, the inventor, or the soldier desires to visit the scenes amidst which his craft spent its earliest infancy, it will be to the forest primaeval that he will turn his steps. Of medicine, too, the same may be said; for, in those long and leisured days of sylvan45 quiet, men learned the secrets of the bark and discovered the healing virtues46 that slept in the swaying leaves; and straightway the forest became a pharmacy48. When, exhausted49 by his labour, or enervated50 by unaccustomed conditions, his health failed him, Man resorted for his first drugs and tonics51 to his ancient home among the trees. Indeed, he still returns to the forest to be nursed and tended in his hour of sickness.
Those who have read Gene52 Stratton Porter’s Harvester know what wonders lurk53 in the woods. The Harvester lived away in the forest, and from 232bark and gum and sap and leaf he collected the tonics and anodynes and stimulants54 that he sold to the chemists in the great cities. And after awhile every tree that he felled seemed to him such a wealthy store of healing virtue47 that, when he began to think of his dream-girl and his future home, he could scarcely bring himself to build his cabin out of logs that were so overflowing55 with medicinal properties. He was in love, and all the tumultuous emotions awakened56 by that great experience were surging through his veins; and yet it seemed to him an act of sacrilege to cut chairs and tables out of such sacred things as trees! He apologetically explained the delicacy57 of the situation to each oak and ash before lifting his axe against it.
‘You know how I hate to kill you!’ he said to the first one he felled. ‘But it must be legitimate58, you know, for a man to take enough trees to build a home. And no other house is possible for a creature of the woods but a cabin, is it? The birds use the material they find here; and surely I have a right to do the same. Nothing else would serve, at least for me. I was born and reared here, and I’ve always loved you!’
But for all that, he felt, as the fragrant59 chips flew in all directions, just as a man might feel who killed a pet lamb for the table; and the Harvester could scarcely reconcile himself to his iconoclastic60 work. 233In Medicine Woods he had learned the awful sanctity of the forest, the forest that was the home and nurse and mother of us all, and it seemed to him a dreadful thing to slay61 a tree. Frazer tells us in his Golden Bough62 that the Ojibwa Indians very rarely cut down green or living trees; they fancy that it puts the poor things to such pain. And some of their medicine men aver63 that, with their mysterious powers of hearing, they have heard the wailing64 and the screaming of the trees beneath the axe. Mr. Adams, too, in his Israel’s Ideal, has reminded us that, in Eastern Africa, the destruction of the cocoanut-tree is regarded as a form of matricide, since that tree gives men life and nourishment65 as a mother does her child. The early Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plutarch, watching the rustling66 of the leaves and the swaying of the graceful branches, came to the conclusion that trees are sentient67 things possessed68 of living souls. And, in his Tales for Children, Tolstoy makes as pathetic a scene out of the death of a great tree as many a novelist makes out of the death of a gallant69 hero.
Now it must have been out of this strange feeling—this dim consciousness of a sacredness that haunted the leafy solitudes—that Man came to regard the forest with superstitious70 gratitude71 and veneration72. The bush represented to him the source of all his supplies, the reservoir that met all his demands, 234the means of all healing, and the very fountain of life. And so he plunged73 into the depths of the forest and erected74 his temples there; in its shady groves75 he reared his solemn altars; in its leafy glades76 he built his shrines77; and the imagery of the forest wove itself into the vocabulary of his devotion. The representation of a sacred tree occurs repeatedly, carved upon the stony78 ruins of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician temples, and Herodotus more than once remarks upon the frequency of tree-worship among the ancient peoples. Pliny, too, marvelled79 at the reverence which the Druids felt for the oak, and, in a scarcely less degree, for the holly80, the ash, and the birch. And what stirring passages those are in which George Borrow describes the weird81 rites82 and dark symbolism of the gipsies as they worshipped at dead of night in the fearsome recesses of the pine forests of Spain!
It is really not surprising that this haunting sense of sanctity in the woods should lead Man to worship there. Even Emerson felt that—
The Gods talk in the breath of the woods,
They talk in the shaken pine.
And the Harvester himself found the forest to be instinct with moral and spiritual potencies83. ‘You not only discover miracles and marvels84 in the woods,’ he said, ‘but you get the greatest lessons taught 235in all the world ground into you early and alone—courage, caution, and patience.’ Here, then, we have the trees as teachers and preachers, and many a man has learned the deepest lessons of his life at the feet of these shrewd and silent philosophers. What about Brother Lawrence, whose Practice of the Presence of God has become one of the Church’s classics? ‘The first time I saw Brother Lawrence,’ writes his friend, ‘was upon August 3, 1666. He told me that God had done him a singular favour in his conversion85 at the age of eighteen. It happened in this way. One winter morning, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and that after that the flowers and fruit would appear, he received a high view of the providence86 and power of God, which has never since been effaced87 from his soul.’ What God could do for the leafless tree, he thought, He could also do for him.
Milton tells us that the forest, which has played so large a part in the development of this world, will flourish also in the next.
In heaven the trees
Of life ambrosial88 fruitage bear, and vines
Yield nectar.
And, having all this in mind, is it not pleasant to notice that the very last chapter of the Bible tells 236of the tree that waves by the side of the river of life? There is something sacramental about trees. George Gissing says that Odysseus cutting down the olive in order to build for himself a home is a picture of man performing a supreme89 act of piety90. ‘Through all the ages,’ he says, ‘that picture must retain its profound significance.’ The trees of Medicine Woods yielded up their life to the Harvester’s axe, that he and his dream-girl might dwell in security and bliss91. And, on a green hill far away without a city wall, another tree was cut down years ago, that it might represent to all men everywhere the means of grace and the hope of glory. And even more than all the other trees, the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations.
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1
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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2
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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4
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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8
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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10
wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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12
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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13
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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14
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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15
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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16
monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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18
ordain
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| vi.颁发命令；vt.命令，授以圣职，注定，任命 | |
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19
aboriginals
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| （某国的）公民( aboriginal的名词复数 )； 土著人特征； 土生动物（或植物） | |
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20
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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21
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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extermination
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| n.消灭，根绝 | |
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23
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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24
exterminate
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| v.扑灭，消灭，根绝 | |
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25
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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28
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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29
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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30
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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31
primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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32
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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33
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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34
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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35
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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36
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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37
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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38
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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39
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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40
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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41
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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42
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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43
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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44
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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45
sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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46
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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47
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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48
pharmacy
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| n.药房，药剂学，制药业，配药业，一批备用药品 | |
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49
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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50
enervated
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| adj.衰弱的，无力的v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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52
gene
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| n.遗传因子，基因 | |
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53
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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54
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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55
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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56
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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60
iconoclastic
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| adj.偶像破坏的，打破旧习的 | |
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61
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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62
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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aver
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| v.极力声明；断言；确证 | |
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64
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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65
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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66
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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73
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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74
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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75
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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76
glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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77
shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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78
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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79
marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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81
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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82
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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potencies
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| n.威力( potency的名词复数 )；权力；效力；（男人的）性交能力 | |
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84
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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85
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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86
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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87
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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88
ambrosial
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| adj.美味的 | |
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89
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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90
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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91
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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