ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. In the course of seeing green and breathing it in, early modern people sought and, at least in placebo form, frequently seemed to findways of pleasing themselves and easing their circumstances, whether through the amelioration of their eyesight or the prevention of airborne disease. In their appropriations of Orphic ideas about the possibility of animating their green surroundings, as well as their impositions upon and transformations of the very flesh of trees as graphic media, early moderns once again eased and pleased themselves notably, never at their own expense. Green eased being, although human beings have not generally in their turn been easy on green. Yet of late the human relationship with things green remains, if anything, uneasier than ever before, as may be evident in some late modern versions. Seeing green, breathing green, healing green: apparently it can, after all, be that easy.
