about, political or social, and might care to follow it out with me
earnestly.

The day will assuredly come when men will see that it _is_ a
grave question; at which period, also, I doubt not, there will arise
persons able to investigate it. For the present, the movements of the
world seem little likely to be influenced by botanical law; or by any
other considerations respecting trees, than the probable price of
timber. I shall limit myself, therefore, to my own simple woodman's
work, and try to hew this book into its final shape, with the limited
and humble aim that I had in beginning it, namely, to prove how far
the idle and peaceable persons, who have hitherto cared about leaves
and clouds, have rightly seen, or faithfully reported of them.


[22] _Genesis_ ii, 15; iii 24.

[23] "In our own National Gallery. It is quaint and imperfect, but
of great interest." [Ruskin.] Paolo Uccello (c. 1397-1475), a
Florentine painter of the Renaissance, the first of the naturalists.
His real name was Paolo di Dono, but he was called Uccello from his
fondness for birds.




THE MOUNTAIN GLORY

VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 20