There is in Cambridge, Mass., an elm-tree of moderate size,
which has, according to the estimates of Professor Gray, a leaf
surface of 200,000 square feet. This tree exhales seven and
three-quarter tons of water every twelve hours. A forest of 500
such trees would return to the atmosphere nearly 4,000 tons in
the same time.
Our lives should be like this tree, shedding their refreshment
continually. (Text.)
(69)
* * * * *
Good men are not meant to be simply like trees planted by
rivers of waters, flourishing in their own pride and for their
own sake. They ought to be like the eucalyptus trees which
have been set out in the marshes of the Campagna, from which a
healthful, tonic influence is said to be diffused to countervail
the malaria. They ought to be like the Tree of Paradise, “whose
leaves are for the healing of nations.”--HENRY VAN DYKE.
(70)
* * * * *
The flower blooms not for itself at all,
Its joy is the joy that diffuses:
Of beauty and balm it is prodigal,
And it lives in the life it freely loses;
No choice for the rose but glory or doom,
To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom.
To deny
Is to die.
(71)
See VICARIOUSNESS.