We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings today?

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude.

Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?