Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-02
TREES Of HISTORY
Continued from page 8

presented TO Ine NeHeIdDlS LII. NuSll, d
large fragment preserved on the Penn
estate in Stoke England, and by monu-
ment erected to its memory by the Penn
Society of the Quaker City.
Poets and musicians have drawn much
inspiration from certain trees A great
beech near Loughton, England, must
have whispered thoughts of Locksley
Hall, for Tennyson wrote the poem under
it's shelter Six gigantic willows at Cam
bridge, Massachusetts, bear testimony to
the poet Lowells affection, for some of
his sweetest expressions were prompted
by their companionship; while Dr. Holmes
found courage to propose to the school
mistress only when supported by the
presence of the gingko-tree, now cher
ished in his memory on the Boston Com
mons, where school-children repeat this
pretty episode.
The solitude of a forest was boon to
the reserved temperament of Beethoven,
whose intimacy with nature is SO en-
phasized in his compositions; and the
Kahlenberg woods near Vienna are
memorial to his work, for there he wrote
his best. Friends of Theodore Thomas
say that he never was happier than when
in forest; and because he was able to
carry away with him the characteristic
melodies which arose from the soughing
of the wind through thick branches, the
rustling of the leaves, the swaying of the
boughs as they tapped each other in
friendly intimacy, he was able to inter-
pref the music of the old masters.
Myth and magic have been aided large
ly in concentrating interest concerning
some species upon single productions.
The Eddas claim that man was fash
toned from the ash which was Odin's
tree; the Danes that witch called the
Elder Mother" guards the elder the
Germans that belt of pines about the
Mummelsee is haunted the Austrians
that the "Stock am Eisem" in Vienna
will bring good luck to the apprentice
that drives a nail into its trunk; and
the Devonshire farmer that good crop
will follow if he spills bowl of cider on
the roots of a bearing apple-tree on
Christmas-eve.
However, in this procession of mystical
growths, none so deserves the palm of
honor as the oak, loves own tree"
according to Vergi1, while the Greeks
helQ tnat LeuS was enIn1OneQ III the oak
groves of Dodona, where the roots pene-
trated the earth's crust to such a depth
as to give them prophetic power. The
Yule log, never entirely consumed, and
kindled first from Druidical fires, was of
oak; and early Britons welcomed the
harvests with garlands and wreaths,
plucked from its branches. Burgess states
that in Tunis the oak, from the use of
acorns as food, is called the "mea1-bear-
ing tree" and Pliny explains that in his
time acorns, which in Asia and Southern
Europe are large and succulent, were
the chief wealth of many nations"
Right royalty did Charles II. dispense
favors when he granted to Connecticut,
as Cotton Mather expressed it, The
freest charter under the cope of Heaven"
that charter which, thrust by a patriots
hand into an oaks hollow trunk, was
preserved to the soil that had sustained
the unique guardian; and it is said that
one day the same English ruler was glad
to hide his monarchial self in a similar
growth nourished by the parent land.
The Guardian" ever after named the
Charter Oak Hartford has Drized as