Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.

This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a "better land," without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world?

I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry,-determine to make a day of it.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Poetry cannot breathe in the scholar's atmosphere.

For my part, I would rather look toward Rutland than Jerusalem. Rutland,--modern town,--land of ruts,--trivial and worn,--not toosacred,--with no holy sepulchre, but profane green fields and dusty roads, and opportunity to live as holy a life as you can, where the sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.