James Lane Allen

The Last Christmas Tree: An Idyl of Immortality is a novella by James Lane Allen. Allen was an American novelist and short story writer, here conveying a wholesome and poetic reflection of nature. Excerpt: "But meantime life on this earth implies warmth and carries warmth: that at least we positively have found out though without knowing what warmth is. Every living terrestrial creature is a candle, is a lamp. The rose is a perfumed lamp and when its bowl is without oil, that inimitable lamp so silently built to give off for a little while a few serene rays of vestal beauty as silently falls to pieces. The pine tree is a wild candle poised on a mountain table. The eagle is a winged candle burning to cinders on a peak of air. The albatross is a floating conflagration with all the ineffectual sea drenching its back and breast. The polar bear is a four-branch candle in a candlestick of snow. We human beings are laughing and tear-dripping candles, descending swiftly to our sockets."