Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.

I have a room all to myself; it is nature.

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!

How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?

Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.