The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests.

If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

If only the bird with the loveliest song sang, the forest would be a lonely place.

All trembling, I reached the Falls of Niagara, and oh, what a scene! My blood shudders still, although I am not a coward, at the grandeur of the Creators power; and I gazed motionless on this new display of the irresistible force of one of His elements.