Why beeches are better than other trees in the woods

In his book of proverbs, Blake writes, ‘A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.’ That is true enough but it is not my tree-proverb, which runs, ‘An artist sees trees he can paint.’ When I look at trees, my eyes search instinctively for paintable ones, whose trunk and branches, leaves and swagger — for every worthwhile tree has pride of ancestry and wishes to cut a bella figura — I can get down on my paper and make lovable. Trees whose portraits I can paint. Trees are the nearest things in vegetable nature to human beings, with parents and offspring and lineage and long lifespans, whose shape and appearance — and health — are influenced by heredity and accident, place and quality of nourishment. Trees have faces and characters, even morals of a rough-and-ready, unscrupulous kind. They are often immigrants, from a few centuries back, who cunningly contrive to look very English, like beeches.