Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.

We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.

But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any naturalobject, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still.

The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one's appetite is not too keen.

The whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature are the purest morality.

A nation may be ever so civilized and yet lack wisdom.