WordWealth: sylvan

syl·van \SIL-vuhn\, adj.

In this area the government has established a network of "greenways," or nature trails, that skirt the ponds and wend through woods and have informative signs, in Czech and English, every mile or so. Like the products of most other service industries in formerly Communist countries, the trails are half charming and half absurd. The first few miles of the twenty-five-mile track we followed were paved with big, uneven cement squares, making for a jarring ride. But other portions were smooth and sylvan. At the end of the day, having stopped for several feet of sausage and many hearty hellos to Czech and German travelers, we were glad to have made the journey. —— James Fallows, in Travel, 'Beyond Prague'; Where to slake a thirst for fairy-tale architecture -- among other Czech specialities; The Atlantic, June 1998

They probably picture it as a kind of modest conservatory, set in sylvan splendour in some charmingly landscaped garden. —— Sally Vincent, 'Driven by daemons'; Guardian, Nov 10, 2001

Following the course of the brook, and especially in the ravines, are many poplars and other tall trees, which, together with the bushes and the shrubs, form a dark and labyrinthine wood. ... It would, in truth, be difficult to   imagine anything more secluded and sylvan, more solitary, peaceful, and silent than this spot. —— Juan Valera, Pepita Jimenez

Contrary to popular belief, many of those who opt for alternative lifestyles are integrated members of society who work, vote, pay taxes and stand waist-deep in sylvan ponds waiting to tempt hireling swains to their watery deaths...The last of these is, admittedly, an anomaly, but it is typical of the world of Tom Hunter, who specialises in photographing squatters and travellers in the pose of pre-Raphaelite paintings. —— Alfred Hickling; 'Thoughts of Life and Death'; Guardian; Nov 21, 2002

Tad Homer-Dixon is an unlikely Jeremiah. Today a boyish thirty-seven, he grew up amid the sylvan majesty of Vancouver Island, attending private day schools. His speech is calm, perfectly even, and crisply enunciated. There is nothing in his background or manner that would indicate a bent toward pessimism. A Canadian Anglican who spends his summers canoeing on the lakes of northern Ontario, and who talks about the benign mountains, black bears, and Douglas firs of his youth, he is the opposite of the intellectually severe neoconservative, the kind at home with conflict scenarios. Nor is he an environmentalist who opposes development. "My father was a logger who thought about ecologically safe forestry before others," he says. "He logged, planted, logged, and planted. He got out of the business just as the issue was being polarized by environmentalists. They hate changed ecosystems. But human beings, just by carrying seeds around, change the natural world." As an only child whose playground was a virtually untouched wilderness and seacoast, Homer-Dixon has a familiarity with the natural world that permits him to see a reality that most policy analysts--children of suburbia and city streets--are blind to. —— Robert D. Kaplan; 'The Coming Anarchy'; How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet; The Atlantic, Feb 1994
 

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