Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet: he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane. . . .

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.

Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it.

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting a compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them.