Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Tree
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
’Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years,
So much, that in our later stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
Mrs. Thrale (afterwards Mrs. Piozzi).—See Boswell’s Johnson, 1766. From a poem entitled “The Three Warnings.”
Shall we—shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamour’d of their wretched soil?
Dr. Young.—Night IV. Line 111.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms.
Cowper.—The Task, Book I. Line 307. The Sofa.
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. IV. To Burlington, Line 120.
If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
Ecclesiastes, Chap. xi. Ver. 3.
[That is meant as to the general state of the tree, not what is the effect of a sudden blast. The expression refers to condition, and not to position. Boswell’s Johnson, 1782.]
The tree of knowledge blasted by dispute,
Produces sapless leaves instead of fruit.
Denham.—Progress of Learning, Line 43.
He loves his old hereditary trees.
Cowley.