Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/71

 universe. The flower is the colored leaf, and the trunk the leaf-stalk, or, as it were, folded leaves; and in the bare tree-stock in the winter is seen the naked fibre and outline of the leaf, which in the spring will be filled with vegetable pulp, and layers of leaves make the soil itself in which new forests are planted.

In all her various products Nature only develops her simplest germs; and whether it be tangled and weathered vines, or cedar or oak forests, or wide-stretching grain-fields,—all are to be referred to one; all belong to one head like the curls of a maiden s hair. It seems to have been no great stretch of invention to have created birds. The hawk perchance, which now takes its flight over the top of the wood, was at first only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves, she came, in the course of ages, to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird. Look up at the tree-tops and see how finely she finishes off her work there, as if she would never have done. See how the pines spire, without end, higher and higher, and give a graceful fringe to the earth! And [23]