The end it served was not individual, but racial--for it belonged not to the soul of the lover, but to the integral structure of life.
Moving suddenly, as if in response to a joyous impulse, he drew away from the tree, and lifting his axe swung it out into the sunlight.

For an instant there was silence.

Then a shiver shook the pine from its roots upward, the boughs rocked in the blue sky, and a bird flying out of them sailed slowly into the west..