Answer:
The correct answer is C. The excerpt compares the tree to a person, which makes readers feel sympathetic toward the tree.
Step-by-step explanation:
Appeals to the emotions is a type of persuasion technique in which the author or speaker uses the language to cause certain emotions in the audience or reader and convince people about the points or ideas the author is describing, this type of persuasion technique uses multiple resources including using fear, explain the negative consequences some situation could have, appeal to a feeling of pity or ridicule, among others. In the excerpt presented, the author describes the way the bark of a tree was removed and sent to London to show the size of the tree for doing this the author mainly attributes human features to the author as in the case of "was skinned alive" in which the author compares the bark of a tree to the skin of people and the process of removing the bark to the process of skinning someone alive, also the author compares this actions to "skinning our great men... to prove their greatness". This use of language by the author mainly evokes empathetic feelings on the reader as the author shows removing the bark of a tree is quite similar to removing the skin of a person. Thus, it can be concluded, the author appeals to the readers' emotions by comparing the tree to a person, which makes readers feel sympathetic toward the tree.