I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath.

Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree.

We must look a long time before we can see

How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.

When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winterdecent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.

Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.