In the valley the sequoia is twenty feet in diameter, and
this is natural. Now, climb the sides of the mountain, and
the diameter drops to ten feet, to five feet, to two feet
six inches, and finally you get an army of average six-inch
sequoias. But don’t say now that because the average on this
rocky soil and these storm-swept peaks is six inches, that the
great tree in the valley is abnormal. On the mountain side, with
the thin soil, roots that cling to rocks, snows that bite, winds
breaking the boughs, thunderbolts that burn and blacken, the
average tree is small.
But this stunted tree is abnormal and unnatural. Your Plato is
the natural man in the intellect. Shakespeare is the normal man
in imagination. Wendell Phillips is the ordinary speaker. The
men you call supreme and extraordinary represent man as God made
them.--N. D. HILLIS.
(2202)
=North Pole Conquest=--See CONQUEST, COMMONPLACE.
=Nose, the Human, Deteriorating=--See DETERIORATION BY DISUSE.