The Forest Giant: Le Gigantesque by Adrien Le Corbeau

Author:Adrien Le Corbeau [Le Corbeau, Adrien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9:

When the Corselet Snaps

More pine kernels had sprouted near by, and the great tree was now kept company by other russet trunks, tens of centuries younger, but undergoing the same development. They grew and changed against the same background as the older tree, extracting the nourishment which formed their shape and colour, sap and scent, from the same area. Again the law of perpetuity asserted itself in creation.

Near the giant a young tree was fainting and failing. It had not the strong straight shape of the other conifers, nor their sharp, shining needles. Its current of life was crossed, confused. Its sap did not fill its roots and branches, its wood was unhealthy: while on its gnarled trunk grew and increased year by year a huge boss of dead matter, whose weight seemed to crush the whole organism. The stomata laboured feebly in their task of collecting food from the environs, and so reduced the tree's vitality that it felt no thrill from the bounty of spring or summer, while hardly was there any flavour in the weak sap which crept drop by drop through the sick veins of its branches. It seemed tired and faint-hearted in its travail, this sap, like an aged workman: and the tree's whole attitude and effect was that of old age, of a failing constitution such as marks the last stages of life in trees long past their prime.

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