We know positively--for we have an equally minute account of the transaction--that the Cypress originated in a similar way. And is it not reasonable to infer, therefore, though we may not find the facts stated in _every_ case, that all trees were created out of men and women, their bodies being miraculously clothed in woody tissue? In the time of Virgil this was certainly the established orthodox belief; for he relates an anecdote, expressing no doubt whatever of its truth, of a party of travellers who commenced one day in a forest the indiscriminate destruction of some young trees, when their roots forthwith began to bleed, and voices proceeded from them, begging to be spared from laceration. And, in fact, hundreds of instances, similarly weighty as evidence, from equally veracious and trustworthy classic authors, might be cited to the point, did time and space permit. But we hasten to the other proof of their essential humanity, which I set out with assuming as an undoubted fact, and which is already foreshadowed in the adventure of the Trojan wanderers just related,--namely, that they possess the faculty of speech.
Tasso, the author of a well-known metrical history, states distinctly, as you shall see in half a moment, that a tree upon one occasion discoursed with Major General Tancred,--
"Pur tragge alfin la spada e con gran forza Percuote l' alta pianta. Oh, maraviglia! ----quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente Un indistinto gemito dolente, Che poi _distinto in voci_."
And then it goes on to tell the General how it once rejoiced in extensive hoops, wore a coal-scuttle on its head, and rubbed its face with prepared chalk,--(w-w-w-hy! what _was_ I saying? such a mistake! I should say)--was a woman by the name of Clorinda, and is still animated and sentient both in trunk and limbs, and that he will presently be guilty of murder, if he continues to hack her with his sword.
The celebrated explorer, Sir John Mandeville, relates in the history of his discoveries that he heard whole groves of trees talking _to one another_. And when we come down to the present day, R.W. Emerson, of Concord, asseverates that trees have conversed with him,--that they speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, and several other languages perfectly,--