You will
see tracts of leafless beeches of a faint yellowish grey, and
leafless oaks a little ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a
solemn green; and, dotted among the pines, or standing by themselves
in rocky clearings, the delicate, snow-white trunks of birches,
spreading out into snow-white branches yet more delicate, and crowned
and canopied with a purple haze of twigs. And then a long, bare
ridge of tumbled boulders, with bright sand-breaks between them, and
wavering sandy roads among the bracken and brown heather. It is all
rather cold and unhomely. It has not the perfect beauty, nor the
gem-like colouring, of the wood in the later year, when it is no more
than one vast colonnade of verdant shadow, tremulous with insects,
intersected here and there by lanes of sunlight set in purple
heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, assuredly, of
this blowzy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of salt, with
a touch of ugliness. It has a sting like the sting of bitter ale;
you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste for olives. And
the wonderful clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by
voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart
tinkling to a new tune - or, rather, to an old tune; for you remember
in your boyhood something akin to this spirit of adventure, this
thirst for exploration, that now takes you masterfully by the hand,
plunges you into many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony
crest.
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