John Seely Hart

“ Yes, you have made blessed such homes as ours. Come to them, and make them lighter and lovelier, by starting an echo of your own human voice, and a reflection of your own human smile, and we will love you better—and for ever! ”

“ But when Fredrika Bremer declares her resolution to cross the world of waves which roll between us and the Norseland, and the papers, circulating in the huts and hamlets all over our broad land, echo that intention, an emotion of a different kind is stirred, and thousands of glad young voices from the cabin as well as from the villa, exclaim, “Welcome to her!” There is no need to explain who she is, or whence she comes—there is not a hamlet in all the land where the question could not be intelligently answered, accompanied with a hearty “God bless her!” ”

“ The soul can speak with a voice so clear and far-resounding that “nations, and tongues, and people,” catch the strain and echo it from heart to heart till the speaker is lost in what she has spoken! Thus is it, Lady of the Norseland, between you and America, when she takes you by the hand to greet your first footstep on the soil. ”

“ The great, the rich, the titled sometimes come from the Fatherland to view our cities, our forests, our lakes, our foaming cataracts, our lofty mountains, our interminable caverns. The splendour of their retinue and appointments dazzles the eye as they dash from object to object. ”

“ Such travellers must ever be strangers—when they come, and while they tarry, and when they depart. No bosom swells joyfully at the mention of their names, if indeed they are mentioned out of the small circle which has been in personal contact. They have done nothing, said nothing, attempted nothing which deserves daguerreotyping in a nation’s memory, how lofty soever their station, how noble their descent ”