It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree was ridged inch deep with pearl.

And what they dare to dream of, date to do.

A friendship counting nearly forty years is the finest kind of shade-tree I know.

There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise.

Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.

Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.