Underwood

“ They are immense in extent, and the trees which form them grow so close together that they tread on one another's toes. All are lashed, and bound, and relashed, into one huge magnificent tangled net, by the thickest underwood, and the most marvellous parasitic growths that nature has ever devised. ”

“ It is true that the weeds and briers of the underwood are but too likely to embarrass and offend the feet of the rangers and the gardeners who trim the level flower-plots or preserve the domestic game of enclosed and ordered lowlands in the tamer demesnes of literature. ”

“ The rising grounds that extend in the direction of the Edge are clothed with a thick umbrage, the tall "patrician trees" mingling with the "plebeian underwood;" many of the older denizens of the wood are curled and distorted into all sorts of weird shapes, and bear the marks of the rough warfare they have had for ages to wage against the elements. ”

“ Some are suspended singly, others in leashes; some reach halfway to the ground and others touch it, striking their rootlets into the earth. The underwood in this part of the forest was composed partly of younger trees of the same species as their taller neighbours, and partly of palms of many species, some of them twenty to thirty feet in height, others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger. ”

“ A little runlet of water, too, that held the middle of a tangled ravine, ran glittering like a golden snake through the underwood, while the stems of the trees, and the light foliage on the edge of the thick woody screens, were bathed in yellow sunshine. All around was beautiful, and rich, and harmonious to the eye, and should have been so to the spirit. ”

“ High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. ”

“ Wild flowers, in great number and varieties, rivalling each other in loveliness, are found in the underwood, giving effect to the drapery of the verdant trees, by enlivening the dark hues of the thickly-growing and overshadowed forest. Some of these flowers and plants are of rare quality and surpassing beauty, and far eclipse in attraction many that are cultivated with care and pride in our gardens ”

“ We spurred our horses and rushed forwards, but an impenetrable thicket compelled us to change our course, and to turn into a part of the forest where there was but little underwood, but where, notwithstanding the beautiful starlight night, it was so pitch dark that we really could not see the wood for the trees, as the saying is. ”

“ Leaves may still cling to the newest growths of underwood long after the older underwood is gaunt and bare. The sap, perhaps, is fresher and more vigorous in the younger wood—prolonging the period of ripening—and the new buds have not pushed out far enough to dislodge the leaves. In coppices that have been thinned one sees how unusually big, and how strong and enduring, are the leaves on the shoots of tree-stumps—as though the whole energy of what was once a tree is concentrated in the few shoots and leaves. ”

“ It consists of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts, without underwood, which are intersected, in all directions, by the paths that lead from one house to the other. Nothing can be more grateful than this shade in so warm a climate, nor any thing more beautiful than these walks. As there is no underwood, the shade cools without impeding the air; and the houses, having no walls, receive the gale from whatever point it blows. ”

“ On the sides of rides trimmed annually the leaves form quite a screen in late autumn—to which one sportsman put down his many misses at rabbits, and ordered his keepers to walk along every ride and pick off all the leaves that remained. The shoots of underwood that has been cut always grow more luxuriantly in a hot, dry summer than in a rainy one ”

“ The underwood is composed of all the various shrubs we had met with in the Straits of Magalhaens; and this brushwood is so thickly spread over the lower parts of the shores of the harbour, that it is only by crawling over it that the distance of a few yards from the rocks can be gained; and being generally of insufficient strength to support a man's weight, it frequently gives way beneath him, and he is so completely buried, as to make it difficult for him to extricate himself. ”

“ Gigantic cedar-trees, larches, firs, pines, birches and maples grow very close together, and the Underwood is so dense that a passage can be forced only with the hatchet, the difficulties being further increased by the abundance of decayed wood and by the marshy foothold. ”

“ When a wood is well stocked with underwood of the right sort, the object to be aimed at by the woodman [Pg 41] is to bring it to maturity as soon as possible, and one means which he possesses, if he will make use of it, is pruning ”

“ Hair like sun-flushed tree-tops at sweet twilight.
Unto the Opal Chambers of the Moon,
The irised chambers of old revelry
They hasten down Night’s stairs of ivory.
Faint grow the little star-lamps. They fade soon. ”

“ The trees are lofty and large, and the underwood grows so close together that in many places it is impassable. The east side of the bay is a rich loamy soil; but near the tops of the hills is very much encumbered with stones and rocks: the underwood thinly placed and small. The trees on the south, south-east, and south-west sides of the hills grow to a larger size than those that are exposed to the opposite points; for the sides of the trees open or exposed to the north winds are naked with few branches; while the other sides are in a flourishing state. ”

“ None of the trees had any size or appearance of age: they are the second growth, which have sprung from the soil once possessed by a mightier race of vegetables. The quantity of mere underwood, and the number of huge black stumps rising in every direction a foot or two from the soil, bear witness to the existence of fine forest timber. ”

“ Giants in those days came to Underwood's mind. He tried to vision the creatures who had walked upon this stairway and touched the hand rail that was shoulder high for him.
The repository was divided into levels and the stairway ended abruptly as they came to the level below the anteroom. The chamber in which they found themselves was crowded with artifacts of strange shapes and varying sizes. Not a thing of familiar cast greeted them. ”

“ The woods here are chiefly of oak; the ground consists of a series of hill and dale, as you go long-wise from one end of the estate to the other, about six miles in length. Down almost every little valley that divides these hills or hillocks, there is more or less of water, making the underwood, in those parts, very thick, and dark to go through ”

“ In the same wood, which we have already described as clothing the hills and skirting the road over which De Vaux and his companion were travelling, but in a far more intricate part thereof than that into which the reader's eye has hitherto penetrated, might be seen, at the hour which we have chosen for the commencement of our tale, the figure of a man creeping quietly, but quickly, along a path so covered by the long branches of the underwood, that it could only be followed out by one who knew well the deepest recesses of the forest. ”

“ As at present the more common kinds of trees and underwood are the only hardy species of decoration in many parts of the ground. Opposite to the east end of the range of plant houses is an oblong piece of ground, laid out in narrow beds by the edge of the walks, which are occupied with a collection of dahlias, and other herbaceous flowering plants. ”

“ There is a squaw who comes down from the Reservation to sell beadwork and things like that on the streets, but she is the only one I ever see nowadays."
"Yes, I got this basket from her today. But I want a mate to it. Is there any one in town who can weave in the Indian fashion?"
"I don't know of any one."
"Would you know if there were any one? Excuse the persistence of a tourist and a faddist!"
Underwood aroused himself to a more genuine interest. "Why, if it is a matter that you have your heart set upon, I certainly should be glad to give you any information possible. ”

“ And whereas it is generally conceived, that the woods grow so thicke, that there is no more cleare ground than is hewed out by labour of man; it is nothing so; in many places, divers Acres being cleare, so that one may ride a hunting in most places of the land, if he will venture himselfe for being lost: there is no underwood saving in swamps, and low grounds that are wet, in which the English get Osiers, and Hasles, and such small wood as is for their use. ”

“ The underwood is only young trees, so that with difficulty one is able to make his way anywhere." "D'Anville's Fleet have only cut wood for present use; they cleared no ground, but encamped their men on the beach. ”

“ When any considerable fall of timber is made we should make them in roads, beginning always on the north side, in order that the wind, which generally blows in frosty weather, may dissipate that humidity which is so prejudicial to the underwood. ”

“ I prefer rough ways, uncultivated spaces, untouched by the human hand. I even love black woods when they are sad. I love wild storms, abundant rain, cold, snow and the frost. I love these harsh things men grumble over. ”

“ Only oriental people, like the Arab, who have known the desert and thirst and the sun’s too direct heat, know how to make gardens. It was one of their perfected arts. And in these gardens they knew how to set pleasure places of unbelievable charm.
All the old gardens of the South, of Latin races, are among the richest enchantments. It takes centuries and wars and changing kings, caprice and madness, and love, to ripen gardens. Money and haste can not do it. A garden, in the finest acceptance of the term, will be impossible in our country for centuries. ”

“ I love gardens. But I do not enjoy reading about them. I hate to see words fade and die. I learn of gardens from painters, etchers. And then I try to remember them without words. In Persian and Indian Miniatures I have loved them best. And the flowers Renoir painted when he was old. Yet that old book Gerard’s Herbal still gives out some of the spiced sweetness of all gardens.
I doubt if in novel making there is such thing as Romanticism, Classicism. Critics, like creations of God He forgot to call good, may be little men, who see in part only, or else through a glass darkly. ”

“ In other words, they thought the time had come when their young ones should turn out of the nest and find food for themselves. There were five little birds in that nice, warm nest, but it was much too small for them now that they were so well feathered; and as they quarrelled terribly about getting the best place, the weakest one was in danger of being tumbled over the side with the pushing and struggling that went on. ”

“ À la incubator method, they are kept alive. They are as surprising to Twentieth Century eyes as the One Horse Shay. In the future noble feelings, (like exotic flowers) will be kept under glass of hot-houses. In no other way can they survive. ”

“ In the wood you may hear no sound but your own muffled footsteps, the crackle of dry twigs, and the soft swish of boughs swinging back from your passage, and now and then a tree punctuating the silence with a clear resonant crack of frozen fibres and its faint echo. You hear no bird nor squirrel nor sound of woodman's axe, nor do you catch the pungent fragrance of his fire nor the subtler one of fresh-cut wood. Indeed, all odors of the forest seem frozen out of the air or locked up in their sources. No perfume drops from the odor-laden evergreens, only scentless air reaches your nostrils. ”

“ While gorgeous-winged some great strange bird sweeps past
And brushes me with wings—ah! brightly vast.
The promise that Life longs for most I feel
Has flashed its gold upon me. I can keep
Only the shadow in the urns of sleep.
66 LVIII
The Spring sun has swathed us in its toga’d light.
O! why were we not born in Sybaris!
I smell Damascus roses, sharp iris,
See streets Lucanian, gay, thus by night:
Rich balconies of marble hid from sight
By tapestries and silks of Sybaris;
The peplus purpling, the bold chlamys;
Greeks ankleted in gems; while buskined bright
Soft-footed Asiatics come and go ”

“ My Woodland Study in Summer. It is an open glade in the middle of a pine-wood. Not all green and level is this glade, with trees standing round in a circle, like the clearings in forests of the Far West, which I used to read of in the novels of Cooper and that so bewitched me when a boy. No, for judging from the rough and rutty pathway that leads up to it, and from the numerous banks and hillocks in it, there can be no doubt that, in far distant days of the past, gravel must have been dug and carted hence.
The wood itself—glade and all—stands on a hill. ”

“ In making selections from the works of others, great pains have been taken to give proper credit for all matter quoted. The author’s home has been for more than thirty years his delightful Pearland Cottage, in the suburbs of Camilla, Ga. ”

“ I cannot forbear quoting from "Society in America” the following exquisite description of American forests, as a specimen of Miss Martineau's delicacy of expression, and her skill in word-painting:
“The English traveler finds himself never weary by day of prying into the forest from beneath its canopy ”

“ A fine unfolding—this love of Morning’s for wood itself, and woods. Over a half-hundred trees were his own—elm, beech, hickory, oak, ash, and maple—and like a fine clean colony of idealists they stood meditating.... One never knows the quality of wood until one builds his own house. Opening the timbers for the big mortices—each was a fresh and fragrant discovery. Jake and he lingered long, after the cabin was roofed, over the heavy oak flooring, and the finishing of windows and doors and frames. ”