“This
is a phobia that occurs very rarely. Forests are no longer numerous, our feet
travel no sylvan paths, and instances of the morbid fear of the grove are
seldom found. But there do exist persons to whom the forest is still a shrine
of terror. The great trees of the woods, which the Freudians look upon as
phallic symbols, can be strangely human creatures to the ylophobiac – creatures
that can reach out with root and branch to seize and destroy him. Not the noble
pillars of a living glorification, but stalwart potencies that may hang, maim,
crush, rend, suck, and overwhelm him. Unutterable evils lurk within their
sprawling tentacles, dread things are poised to drop from their branches. They
exude vapours that drive him mad. They blot out the blessed security of the
open heavens.
“It
is not always the forest that the ylophobiac fears. It may be a lone tree that
stirs his terror, a tree on his own property, as commonplace as the very walls
of his house. But he cannot endure its insidious suggestion and sooner or later
will have it destroyed, however beautiful it may be. In the autumn, the
familiar maple on the lawn, stripped of its concealing leaves, takes on strange
shapes in the moonlight and whispers to the troubled soul of surcease from its
agonies at the end of a dangling rope.”
John Vassos
New York City
May 25th,
1931.
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