There is a beautiful type of this neglect of the perfectness of the Earth’s beauty, by reason of the passions of men, in that picture of Paul Uccello’s of the battle of Sant’ Egidio,[23] in which the armies meet on a country road beside a hedge of wild roses; the tender red flowers tossing above the helmets, and glowing beneath the lowered lances.  For in like manner the whole of Nature only shone hitherto for man between the tossing of helmet-crests; and sometimes I cannot but think of the trees of the earth as capable of a kind of sorrow, in that imperfect life of theirs, as they opened their innocent leaves in the warm springtime, in vain for men; and all along the dells of England her beeches cast their dappled shade only where the outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase; and by the sweet French rivers their long ranks of poplar waved in the twilight, only to show the flames of burning cities on the horizon, through the tracery of their stems; amidst the fair defiles of the Apennines, the twisted olive-trunks hid the ambushes of treachery; and on their valley meadows, day by day, the lilies which were white at the dawn were washed with crimson at sunset.

And indeed I had once purposed, in this work, to show what kind of evidence existed respecting the possible influence of country life on men; it seeming to me, then, likely that here and there a reader would perceive this to be a grave question, more than most which we contend about, political or social, and might care to follow it out with me earnestly.

The day will assuredly come when men will see that it is a grave question; at which period, also, I doubt not, there will arise persons able to investigate it.  For the present, the movements of the world seem little likely to be influenced by botanical law; or by any other considerations respecting trees, than the probable price of timber.  I shall limit myself, therefore, to my own simple woodman’s work, and try to hew this book into its final shape, with the limited and humble aim that I had in beginning it, namely, to prove how far the idle and peaceable persons, who have hitherto cared about leaves and clouds, have rightly seen, or faithfully reported of them.

  [22] Genesis ii, 15; iii 24.

[23] “In our own National Gallery.  It is quaint and imperfect, but of great interest.” [Ruskin.] Paolo Uccello (c. 1397-1475), a Florentine painter of the Renaissance, the first of the naturalists.  His real name was Paolo di Dono, but he was called Uccello from his fondness for birds.

THE MOUNTAIN GLORY

VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 20