William L. Stone

“ Indeed, with most of our race the journey of human life would be circular, were it not that it has both a beginning and an end,—and so has a circle, if you could find them. From all which it follows, that by the laws of the universe, all things, animate and inanimate, move in revolutionary harmony; and though complex in their machinery as the wheels of Ezekiel's vision, are yet so perfect and beautiful in their order, as to have suggested to the ancients the poetical idea of "the music of the spheres." ”

“ Here "hath mailed Mars sat on his altar up to his ears in blood," smiling grimly at the music of echoing cannons, the shrill trump, and all the rude din of arms, until, like the waters of Egypt, the lake became red as the crimson flowers that blossom upon its margin. [1] And if at "the witching hour of night," the unquiet ghosts of murdered sinners do stalk forth to re-visit earth by the pale glimpses of the moon, the slaughter of Fort William Henry might have furnished a goodly number of shadowy companions for the hero of a tale which is no fiction. ”

“ The blood of the innocent Moravians, more than half of them women and children, cruelly and wantonly murdered, calls aloud for revenge. The relatives of the slain, who are among us, cry out and stand ready for revenge. The Shawanese, our grand-children, have asked for your fellow-prisoner; on him they will take revenge. All the nations connected with us cry out, revenge! revenge! The Moravians, whom you went to destroy, having fled instead of avenging their brethren, the offence has become national, and the nation itself is bound to take revenge. ”

“ How happy would it be for the world, if we all lived under the full persuasion of the fact, that the faithful hand of history will not fail to send us down to posterity odious or respected, as by our lives and conduct we shall have deserved! And if my friend Wheelwright shall feel offended that I have kept a record of the most striking incidents of his life, I have only to hope that he will dispel his frowns, dismiss his objections, and, by his own example, illustrate the value of such magnanimity as that displayed by the Emperor of China. ”

“ Pocahontas was moved by the tender passion—the Mohawk sachem by the feelings of magnanimity, and the eternal principles of justice. It is matter of regret that the name of this high-souled warrior is lost, as, alas! have been too many that might have served to relieve the dark and vengeful portraitures of Indian character, which it has so well pleased the white man to draw! The prisoners themselves were so impressed with the manner of their signal deliverance, that they justly attributed it to a direct interposition of the providence of God. ”

“ The rising glories of this western hemisphere have scarcely yet begun to be developed; and as Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright have been deeply impressed with the importance, in a young and rising republic, of having the youth of the land, of both sexes, reared in the paths of virtue and the intellectual flower-garden of knowledge, they have determined to devote their best faculties to the sacred cause of education,—fully believing, from the inexpressible interest they feel upon the subject, that they shall be enabled to exclaim with the immortal poet ”

“ A skirmishing was, however, kept up by both sides—the Indians sallying out of their works by small parties, firing, and suddenly retreating—making the woods at the same time to resound with their war-whoops, piercing the air from point to point as though the tangled forest were alive with their grim-visaged warriors. Correctly judging that the hill upon his right was occupied by the savages, General Sullivan ordered Poor's brigade to wheel off, and endeavor to gain their left flank, and, if possible, to surround them, while the artillery and main body of the Americans attacked them in front. ”

“ Here have the Briton, and the Gaul, and the painted savage, mingled in the dread fight,—steed rushing upon steed, hands clenched in hands with grappling vigor, while the climbing fire, and the clashing steel, and eyes flashing with maddened fury, and the appalling war-whoop of the Indian, have all combined in adding terror to "the rough frowns of war." ”

“ The country was wild and totally uninhabited, excepting by scattered families of the Indians, and here and there by some few of the more adventurous white settlers, in the neighborhood of Unadilla. The sudden swelling of the river, therefore, bearing upon its surge a flotilla of more than two hundred vessels, through a region of primitive forests, and upon a stream that had never before wafted upon its bosom any craft of greater burthen than a bark canoe, was a spectacle which might well appall the untutored inhabitants of the regions thus invaded. ”

“ One of the patriotic members of the city government, distinguished for his enterprise, and his public spirit, undertook the job, and gave to the ancient walls of unhewn stone their existing "form and pressure;"—at an amount, too, not much exceeding, probably, twice the cost of two new buildings of the same dimensions.
Architecture is one of the crowning glories of a city; and nothing more strongly indicates the cultivation of a people, than refinement in this beautiful department of science. ”

“ Both Tories and Indians were entitled to the credit of fighting manfully. Every rock, and tree, and bush, shielded its man, from behind which the winged messengers of death were thickly sent, but with so little effect as to excite astonishment. The Indians yielded ground only inch by inch; and in their retreat darted from tree to tree with the agility of the panther, often contesting each new position to the point of the bayonet—a thing very unusual even with militiamen, and still more rare among the undisciplined warriors of the woods. Thayendanegea was the animating spirit of the savages. ”

“ In this land of freedom, where every tub stands on its own bottom—where men are the architects of their own fame and fortunes—where he that hath neither coat nor shoes is at liberty to go without them,—it is of little moment whether a man knows who he happens to be, or not, provided always that he behaves well. ”

“ I wish to see the Christian religion, sobriety, and good morals, prevail among our nation; but let us continue free and independent as the air that blows upon us; let us continue hunters and warriors, capable of enforcing respect, and doing ourselves justice; but let us never submit to become the tillers of land, hewers of wood, and drawers of water, by the false and interested advice of those who, from being our pretended friends, would soon become our imperious masters. ”

“ The lunar circle betokens a tempest;—modern writers on pneumatics affirm every breeze that blows, from the gentle-breathing zephyr to the rude northeastern blast, to be a whirlwind; and the beautiful hues of the iris, bright with hope and promise, play upon the melting clouds in the segment of a circle. ”

“ Worn down by hunger and fatigue—bruised in body and wounded in spirit—in a lone wilderness, with no eye to pity, and no human arm to protect—he felt as though he must remain in that spot until it should please God in his goodness to quench the dim spark of life that remained. ”

“ Who knows but the beauty of the new commercial exchange that is to be, will cause gladness to those who wept alike over the ugliness and the destruction of the old! Who knows but that a grinning populace will one day displace the lions grinning from the gutters at the eaves of the new stone church in Duane-street! And who knows but that in process of time, American architects will be found who shall understand the difference between the Composite and the Corinthian, and that a long sperm candle was never intended as a model for a Doric column! ”

“ The valley of the Genesee, for its beauty and fertility, was beheld by the army of Sullivan with astonishment and delight. Though an Indian country, and peopled only by the wild men of the woods, its rich intervales presented the appearance of long cultivation, and were then smiling with their harvests of ripening corn. Indeed, the Indians themselves professed not to know when or by whom the lands upon that stream were first brought into cultivation. ”

“ The taste of the Greeks in the arts has contributed more to their glory than their deeds in arms. The chisel of Phidias carved for him a name of more true renown, than the sword did for Alexander; and the name of Sir Christopher Wren will live as long in English history as the Duke of Wellington's. Every patriotic Gothamite, therefore, should rejoice at each successive indication of an improvement in architectural taste amongst us. ”

“ On the contrary, it may be doubted whether the females of the white people, even among nations of the most refinement, exercise a higher or more salutary degree of influence, than do the Indian women. Nor, when dead, are they treated with less respect than the warriors. "The greatest honors are paid to the remains of the wives of renowned warriors and veteran chiefs, particularly if they were descended themselves of a high family, which is by no means an indifferent thing among the Indians, who love to honor the merit of their great men in the persons of their relatives." ”

“ But it is a sad mistake. "Great cities," says the philosopher of Monticello, "are great sores;" and if the envious and discontented poor know little of the splendid misery of the fancied rich,—of the number of aching heads and hearts upon beds of down,—much less do the truly rich, living within great cities, and the world at large without them,—know of the wretchedness and the crime, the poverty and the woe, to be found in the great and crowded marts of trade and commerce in every country. ”

“ In justification of the savages' practices of Indian warfare, his course of reasoning was somewhat like the following: That the object of each party, when engaged in war, was to destroy his enemy, or to weaken and intimidate him so much as to force him into a reasonable peace. The Indians, he said, were destitute of many of the means and implements of war which the white people possessed. They could not successfully contend with them in the open field, man to man, because they had no artillery, so indispensable to, and so destructive in, a field fight. ”

“ A storm, which had been fiercely raging for several days, gave no signs of exhaustion.—The snow, which had been falling for fifty or sixty hours—not in a fleecy shower, but mingled with cutting particles like hail—filled the atmosphere, and with each successive gust of a stiff northwester, was whirled aloft in vast curling sheets and wreaths—or driven through the narrow streets with a force that was blinding and almost irresistible. ”