During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.

To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.

My drawings at first were made altogether in watercolors, but they wanted softness and a great deal of finish.

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.

I discover that my friends think only of my apparel, and those upon whom I have conferred acts of kindness prefer to remind me of my errors.

I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.

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.