What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

Inexpressibly beautiful appears the recognition by man of the least natural fact, and the allying his life to it.

When a man dies he kicks the dust.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

We soon get through with nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.