The instinct of the people is right.

My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.

Nature is a tropical swamp in sunshine, on whose purlieus we hear the song of summer birds, and see prismatic dewdrops, - but her interiors are terrific, full of hydras and crocodiles.

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

Nature is no sentimentalist, - does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons.

The child realizes to every man his own earliest remembrance, and so supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over the unconscious history with a sympathy so tender as to be almost personal experience.

In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense.