A Scandinavian allegory represents human life as a tree, the
“Igdrasil,” or the tree of existence, whose roots grow deep down
in the soil of mystery; the trunk reaches above the clouds; its
branches spread out over the globe. At the foot of it sit the
Past, the Present and the Future, watering the roots. Its boughs
spread out through all lands and all time; every leaf of the
tree is a biography, every fiber a word, a thought or a deed;
its boughs are the histories of nations; the rustle of it is the
noise of human existence onward from of old; it grows amid the
howling of the hurricane; it is the great tree of humanity.
(1791)