“I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hill-top.”

I walked alone through the frost until my breath hung heavy and clear above the snow. There, standing apart from the common forest, I found the black-birch with its golden skin and the beech painted white by time. No scholar waited for me; only the wind in the branches spoke of ancient things.