But strangest of all, and in
appearance oldest of all, are the dim and wizard upland districts
of young wood. The ground is carpeted with fir-tassel, and strewn
with fir-apples and flakes of fallen bark. Rocks lie crouching in
the thicket, guttered with rain, tufted with lichen, white with
years and the rigours of the changeful seasons. Brown and yellow
butterflies are sown and carried away again by the light air--like
thistledown. The loneliness of these coverts is so excessive, that
there are moments when pleasure draws to the verge of fear. You
listen and listen for some noise to break the silence, till you
grow half mesmerised by the intensity of the strain; your sense of
your own identity is troubled; your brain reels, like that of some
gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and should
you see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of
yours, but as a feature of the scene around you.
Still the forest is always, but the stillness is not always
unbroken. You can hear the wind pass in the distance over the
tree-tops; sometimes briefly, like the noise of a train; sometimes
with a long steady rush, like the breaking of waves. And
sometimes, close at band, the branches move, a moan goes through
the thicket, and the wood thrills to its heart. Perhaps you may
hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, a bird gives a dry
continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time
your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's axe.
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