Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,--shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind.

Nature has left nothing to the mercy of man.

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness!

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.

Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.