If
they generally know that Sebastopol is besieged, it is the extent of
their knowledge. The public life of America is lived through the mind
and heart of every man in it; here the people feel that they have nothing
to do with what is going forward, and, I suspect, care little or nothing
about it. Such things they permit to be the exclusive concern of the
higher classes.
In front of our hotel, on the lawn between us and the lake, there are two
trees, which we have hitherto taken to be yews; but on examining them
more closely, I find that they are pine-trees, and quite dead and dry,
although they have the aspect of dark rich life. But this is caused by
the verdure of two great ivy-vines, which have twisted round them like
gigantic snakes, and, clambering up and throttling the life out of them,
have put out branches, and made crowns of thick green leaves, so that, at
a little distance, it is quite impossible not to take them for genuine
trees. The trunks of the ivy-vines must be more than a foot in
circumference, and one feels they have stolen the life that belonged to
the pines. The dead branches of one of the pines stick out horizontally
through the ivy-boughs. The other shows nothing but the ivy, and in
shape a good deal resembles a poplar. When the pine trunks shall have
quite crumbled away, the ivy-stems will doubtless have gained sufficient
strength to sustain themselves independently.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233