The next day we recommenced our wanderings. Ah, in those forests, how
many trees, marked by my knife, bear on their roots or bark a sign by
which I shall ever recognize them! They are those whose shade she
enjoyed; those beneath which she breathed new life, basked in the
warmth of the sun, or inhaled the sweet vernal scent of the trees. The
stranger sees, but dreams not that they are to another the pillars of a
temple, whose worshipper is on earth though its divinity is in heaven.
I still visit them once or twice each spring, on the anniversaries of
these walks; and when the axe lays one low, it seems to me as though it
falls upon myself, and carries away a portion of my heart.