14 MAY 1994, Page 33

Sad

`Sad' evergreen seems true to think of laurel, yew, stiff privet, well-clipped, holm-oak or eucalypt; how the shadowless mass of spruce or cypress flanks field or swathes hill, preternaturally still — as if born to withstand all transfiguring wind; as if born to retain the full sunlight at noon, and at dusk to withold its weave of soft gold.

Simon Curtis