Rural Essays (Architecture and Decorative Art Series)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1857 Excerpt: ... TREES. (i) THE BEAUTIFUL IN A TREE. February, 1851. IN what does the beauty of a tree consist? We mean, of course, what may strictly be called an ornamental tree--not a tree planted for its fruit in the orchard, or growing for timber in the forest, but standing alone in the lawn or meadow««growing in groups in the pleasure-ground, overarching the roadside, or bordering some stately avenue. Is it not, first of all, that such a tree, standing where it can grow untouched, and develop itself on all sides, is one of the finest pictures of symmetry and proportion that the eye can any where meet with? The tree may be young, or it may be old, but if left to nature, it is sure to grow into some form that courts the eye and satisfies it. It may branch out boldly and grandly, like the oat; its top may be broad and stately, like the chestnut, or drooping and elegant, like the elm, or delicate and airy like the birch, but it is sure to grow into the type form--either beautiful or picturesque--that nature stamped upon its species, and which is the highest beauty that such tree can possess. It is true, that nature plants some trees, like the fir and pine, in the fissures of the rock, and on the edge of the precipice; that she twists their boughs and gnarls their stems, by storms and tempests--thereby adding to their picturesque power in sublime and grand scenery: but as a general truth, it may be clearly stated that the Beautiful, in 290 a tree of any kind, is never so fully developed as when, in u genial soil and climate, it stands quite alone, stretching its boughs upward freely to the sky, and outward to the breeze, and even downward towards the earth--almost touching it with their graceful sweep, till only a glimpse of the fine trunk is had at its spreading ...