



Produced by Suzanne Shell, Harry Jones and PG Distributed Proofreaders




THE MAN

WHOM THE TREES LOVED

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

1912




~I~

He painted trees as by some special divining instinct of their essential
qualities. He understood them. He knew why in an oak forest, for
instance, each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, and why
no two beeches in the whole world were alike. People asked him down to
paint a favorite lime or silver birch, for he caught the individuality
of a tree as some catch the individuality of a horse. How he managed it
was something of a puzzle, for he never had painting lessons, his
drawing was often wildly inaccurate, and, while his perception of a Tree
Personality was true and vivid, his rendering of it might almost
approach the ludicrous. Yet the character and personality of that
particular tree stood there alive beneath his brush--shining, frowning,
dreaming, as the case might be, friendly or hostile, good or evil. It
emerged.

There was nothing else in the wide world that he could paint; flowers
and landscapes he only muddled away into a smudge; with people he was
helpless and hopeless; also with animals. Skies he could sometimes
manage, or effects of wind in foliage, but as a rule he left these all
severely alone. He kept to trees, wisely following an instinct that was
guided by love. It was quite arresting, this way he had of making a tree
look almost like a being--alive. It approached the uncanny.

"Yes, Sanderson knows what he's doing when he paints a tree!" thought
old David Bittacy, C.B., late of the Woods and Forests. "Why, you can
almost hear it rustle. You can smell the thing. You can hear the rain
drip through its leaves. You can almost see the branches move