File:A tour through the Pyrenees (1875) (14753503716).jpg

Identifier: tourthroughpyren00tain (find matches)
Title: A tour through the Pyrenees
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893 Fiske, John Safford, 1838-1907, (from old catalog) tr Dore, Gustave, 1832-1883, (from old catalog) illus
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Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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iberty andwealth. The pines, on the other hand, seem scarce-ly alive ; their shaft rises in a perpendicular linealong the rocks; their horizontal branches partfrom the trunk at right angles, equal as the radii ofa circle, and the entire tree is a cone terminated bya naked spike. The dull little blades that answerfor leaves have a melancholy hue, without trans-parency or lustre ; they seem hostile to the light;they neither reflect it, nor allow it to pass, theyextinguish it; hardly does the noonday sun fringethem with a bluish reflection. Ten paces away,beneath such an aureole, the black pyramid cutsthe horizon like an opaque mass. They crowd to-gether in files under their funereal mantles. Theirforests are silent as solitudes ; the whistle of thewind makes there no noise ; it glides over the stiffbeard of the leaves without stirring or rubbingthem together. One hears no sound save thewhispering of the tops and the shrivelling of thelittle yellowish lamels which fall in showers as soon
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THE PINES. Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 371 as you touch a branch. The turf is dead, the soilnaked ; you walk in the shade beneath an inanimateverdure, among pale shafts which rise like tapers.A strong odor fills the air, resembling the perfumeof aromatics. The impression is that made by adeserted cathedral, while, after a ceremony, thesmell of incense still floats under the arches, andthe declining day outlines far away in the obscuritythe forest of pillars. They live in families and expel the other treesfrom their domain. Often, in a wasted gorge, theymay be seen like a mourning drapery descendingamong the white glaciers. They love the cold,and in winter remain clothed in snow. Springdoes not renew them ; you see only a few greenlines run through the foliage ; they soon grow darklike the rest. But when the tree springs from aspot of deep earth, and rises to a height of ahundred feet, smooth and straight as the mast of aship, the mind with buoyancy follows to the verysummit the fl

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