--particles so fine that grains of sand would have been coarse in
comparison with, them,--and every atom composing its mass, were
stamped with this same tree-image, and bore the shape of the
ice-crystals, of the ferns and of the colossal palm-leaves I had
seen. And my guide said, "Before these stones were, the Tree of
Life stood in the midst of the Universe."

And again we passed on, leaving behind us the chapel and the circle
of stones, the pines and the firs: and as we went the foliage
around us grew more and more stunted and like that at home. We
traveled quickly; but now and then, through breaks and openings
in the woods, I saw solitary oaks standing in the midst of green
spaces, and beneath them kings giving judgment to their peoples,
and magistrates administering laws.

At last we came to a forest of trees so enormous that they made
me tremble to look at them. The hugeness of their stems gave them
an unearthly appearance; for they rose hundreds of feet from the
ground before they burst out far, far above us, into colossal
masses of vast-leaved foliage. I cannot sufficiently convey the
impressions of awe with which the sight of these monster trees
inspired me. There seemed to me something pitiless and phantom-like
in the severity of their enormous bare trunks, stretching on without
break or branch into the distance--overhead, and there at length
giving birth to a sea of dark waving plumes, the rustle of which
reached my ears as the sound of tossing waves.

Passing beneath these vast trees we came to others of smaller growth,
but still of the same type,--straight-stemmed, with branching foliage
at their summit. Here we stood to rest, and as we paused I became