A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson.

Much has seen said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.

War, like all other situations of danger and of change, calls forth the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of men.

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.