In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason and faith.

In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration; gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.

Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.

Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music.

Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.

A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, his living is natural and poetic.

Genius seems to consistent merely in trueness of sight.