The achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire.

The mind has its own logic but does not often let others in on it.

One may lack words to express the impact of beauty but no one who has felt it remains untouched. It is renewal, enlargement, intensification. The parks preserve it permanently in the inheritance of the American citizens.

It is imperative to maintain portions of the wilderness untouched so that a tree will rot where it falls, a waterfall will pour its curve without generating electricity, a trumpeter swan may float on uncontaminated water - and moderns may at least see what their ancestors knew in their nerves and blood.

The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. When you reach the line which marks that drop - for convenience, the one hundredth meridian - you have reached the West.

Art is man determined to die sane.

Let us candidly admit that there are shameful blemishes on the American past, of which the worst by far is rum. Nevertheless, we have improved man's lot and enriched his civilization with rye, bourbon and the Martini cocktail. In all history has any other nation done so much?