Then I would follow this up by contrasting the various parallel forms of life in the two continents.  Our naturalists have often referred to this incidentally or expressly; but the animus of Nature in the two half globes of the planet is so momentous a point of interest to our race, that it should be made a subject of express and elaborate study.  Go out with me into that walk which we call the mall, and look at the English and American elms.  The American elm is tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, and drooping as if from languor.  The English elm is compact, robust, holds its branches up, and carries its leaves for weeks longer than our own native tree.

Is this typical of the creative force on the two sides of the ocean, or not?  Nothing but a careful comparison through the whole realm of life can answer this question.

There is a parallelism without identity in the animal and vegetable life of the two continents, which favors the task of comparison in an extraordinary manner.  Just as we have two trees alike in many ways, yet not the same, both elms, yet easily distinguishable, just so we have a complete flora and a fauna, which, parting from the same ideal, embody it with various modifications.  Inventive power is the only quality of which the Creative Intelligence seems to be economical; just as with our largest human minds, that is the divinest of faculties, and the one that most exhausts the mind which exercises it.  As the same patterns have very commonly been followed, we can see which is worked out in the largest spirit, and determine the exact limitations under which the Creator places the movement of life in all its manifestations in either locality.  We should find ourselves in a very false position, if it should prove that Anglo-Saxons can’t live here, but die out, if not kept up by fresh supplies, as Dr. Knox and other more or less wise persons have maintained.  It may turn out the other way, as I have heard one of our literary celebrities argue,—­and though I took the other side, I liked his best,—­that the American is the Englishman reinforced.

—­Will you walk out and look at those elms with me after breakfast?—­I said to the schoolmistress.

[I am not going to tell lies about it, and say that she blushed, —­as I suppose she ought to have done, at such a tremendous piece of gallantry as that was for our boarding-house.  On the contrary, she turned a little pale,—­but smiled brightly and said,—­Yes, with pleasure, but she must walk towards her school.—­She went for her bonnet.—­The old gentleman opposite followed her with his eyes, and said he wished he was a young fellow.  Presently she came down, looking very pretty in her half-mourning bonnet, and carrying a school-book in her hand.]

MY FIRST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

This is the shortest way,—­she said, as we came to a corner.—­Then we won’t take it,—­said I.—­The schoolmistress laughed a little, and said she was ten minutes early, so she could go round.