Foreground

“ There is a wonderful land called The Future, and somewhere in that land stands the structure of the feminine civilization,—its golden domes glittering in the sunshine,—its airy pinnacles springing into the ether,—bright contrast to the vast, time-worn towers and sombre splendours of its frowning brother. ”

“ Perhaps you may know that I dabble a little in geology—only dabble—but every tyro must have noticed how the features of a landscape depend on its geological formation, and not only the look of the landscape, but the occupations of the people. ”

“ Where its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has planted itself,—and such is the beginning of Rome, the establishment, of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of America, or the steppes of Asia. ”

“ I was, again, in the land of facts, a land deeply involved, indeed, in the sins and miseries of a fallen world; but still a land, where, for centuries, everything has been steadily advancing towards a high realization of human capabilities, alike in the physical, and mental, and moral of man’s nature. ”

“ Forest, "at the slow growth of modern civilization—the ages which have been consumed in reaching our present altitude, and see how we have outgrown slavery, feudalism, and religious persecutions, I cannot despair of the future of the race." ”

“ What can we expect of such a race of people who have drifted from the light of civilization for so long a period? As I looked at their customs and their ways, I was reminded of a garden that has run wild. ”

“ In one respect these children of the forest possess that which civilisation seems rather to dwarf amongst men of the highest culture and imagination—a certain stately eloquence and nobility of expression, in which natural images abound, and allegory and metaphor consort together in excellent and tasteful union. ”

“ The sudden change from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may depend on the formation which composes it. ”

“ Her sons and daughters, knowing no better because of their peculiar environment, grew up believing this old earth most beautiful, and the nobility of their world seemed to create in them nobility of character. The sheltered peace of that green valley entered into their souls. ”

“ There the famous idealists and transcendentalists of America met to till the soil and hew the timber in the sweat of their own brows, thinking high thoughts the while, and breathing an atmosphere of communal love, and tingling in tune with the Oversoul, like so many strings of a super-celestial harp. ”

“ I rarely see much in the country—a few herbs underfoot, the next field, the horizon woods, some brief light that shows only its departing hem; for, like others, I always carry out into the fields a vast baggage of prejudices from books and strong characters whom I have met. ”

“ The scene is the country and the very little country town, with landscape, atmosphere, simplicity, circumstance—all surroundings and conditions—VERITABLE—everything rural and dialectic, no less than the simple, primitive, common, wholesome-hearted men and women who so naturally live and have their blessed being in his stories, just as in the life itself. ”

“ To us the Common or forest looks indeed crowded with people, but to them the feeling is one of sufficient space, free air, green grass, and colour, with a life without which they might think the place dull. ”

“ Cities, the building blocks of civilization, not only transcend nature; they replace her. Up to a certain point man lived more or less consciously as a part of nature. Bit by bit and step by step man shifted from the stream, the glade, the tree and the cave to the hut, the village, the city, the nation, the empire, the civilization.
Early in this study I wrote of civilization as an experiment: an aspiration, a creative urge, a concept, a purpose, a unity of thought and act, a conscious sequence of related actions, a construct of multiplying complexity. ”

“ The manners of the people in these wild mountains are primitive beyond all conception, and their morals so pure, their affections so warm, and their language so artless and unrestrained, that they seemed as if just fresh from the hand of the Creator in the beginning of the world! ”

“ The true history of a forest is rather an account of its trees and its flowers and birds, than an historical narrative. Yet even here there are some important facts connected with the nation's life, and illustrating the character of its kings. ”

“ A hemisphere may divide the East and the West of this great city; but these are human beings as you are a human being, they are your brothers and your sisters. Consider for a moment this natural law of yours. ”

“ Like a spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular descent, over the different series of facts which compose its civilization. ”

“ Let the striking contrast, since the forest has been made to blossom as the rose, be viewed in such an impressive light as to operate on the mind of every son and daughter of America and lead to the uniform practice of public an private virtue. ”

“ The grandeur and freedom of Nature in that new region, the mighty forests, the limitless prairies, the luxuriant{32} vegetation, produced a sudden expansion in that youthful soul, trained amid the cultivated gardens and carefully clipped hedges of England. Imagination experienced a new birth in poetry, as the heart experiences religion. ”

“ His knowledge of rustic life within his own borders is beautifully sympathetic and profound. His impression of the landscape in the midst of which this life displays itself is broad and noble and alive. ”

“ Doubtless, in all generations, the seers and the seekers—who are usually one and the same—have felt that their times were the culminating points of history, the mountain of vision, the border overlooking the promised land. ”

“ We are here in these valleys of the mountains organised as a people; and we know how we came to be here; and we know the designs of God, and the designs of our enemies concerning us; we know the distinction which is drawn between this people and the world ”

“ The soil daily trodden by the foot of any reflecting being,—the locality with whose present struggles, progress or decay, he is practically acquainted,—whose traditions and folk-lore were first fixed in his memory and his heart, long before more exact knowledge or cultivated judgment enabled him to test their accuracy or correctly weigh their value,—must possess historic reminiscences not only capable of commanding his attention, by exciting in the imaginative faculty agreeable and healthy sensations, but of teaching him valuable lessons in profound practical wisdom. ”

“ They saw, in vision, that a little nucleus here in the mountains would arise, and that the mountain of the Lord's house would be established above the hills, and that all nations should flock to the standard, as doves to their windows. ”

“ The mountains and valleys, where once nothing but the wild shouts of untutored savages and the howls of beasts of prey broke the stillness of the dismal solitude, are now vocal with the voice and bustle of civilization, as in giant strides science and art triumph over the rough barriers, and open avenues for the advancement of moral reform. ”

“ A picture of the social condition of the New Stone Man has been drawn by an able historian. He bids us, in imagination, make our way through a track in the dense virgin forest to one of the rough clearings. ”

“ With much labor we got our things up the steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much—OUR land, as we shall ever fondly call it. ”

“ You inhabit here a goodly land. A land full of promise, where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. ”

“ They lived in territories only partially cleared from forests, pushed their way forward to power pioneered by the great religious orders, and their world was one surrounded by opportunities of endless adventures. ”

“ Even the points exist, a little altered by civilization, but so nearly answering to the descriptions, as to be easily recognized by all who are familiar with the scenery of the particular region in question. ”

“ My takings of nature increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. ”

“ Certain peculiar modes of acting and reacting on nature and things—modes derived from peculiarities of ancestral experience, natural scenery, social institutions, and other conditions of existence—constitute those different styles of humanity called races or nations. ”

“ As the country was growing by the expansive drive of which the frontier was the cutting edge, it was also growing up, both behind and on the frontier. The process of maturing is as significant as that of expanding. ”

“ It rests upon the soil, and from that soil below and its reaction to the seasons and the moods of the sky overhead have grown most of the traditions, institutions, sentiments, beliefs, superstitions, and fundamental songs and stories of mankind. ”

“ The pioneer settlers of America, in their trek into the ulterior, faced the forest and its terrors, and every member of the family who was old enough added his ounce of effort to the struggle to subdue it. ”

“ To know this country and the people it has sheltered through past centuries one must first glean something of that ephemeral story-charm which records in crag, in mist, in singing stream36 and spreading tree the dreams made almost real by the thousands of souls who have treasured them, and given them, lip to lip, from old to young, since the forests were first green upon the hills. ”

“ When I, a northern man, see the orange-tree growing naturally in its native clime, when I gaze upon a smoking volcano, or see another standard than the star-spangled banner waving over a fortress, then I have changed my country. The idea of country is a notion springing from early association, engrafted by custom, and strengthened by habit. ”

“ He told us another day that views are really crowds—crowds of trees and houses and hills—and are bound to resemble each other, like human crowds—and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural, for the same reason. ”

“ At this hour, in remote parts of the great continent of America, the pioneers of modern civilisation may be said to live amid medieval surroundings. The vast forests and endless prairies give a romance to common things. ”

“ The men who came here were able to throw off all the trammels of tradition and established doctrine. They went out into a wilderness, it is true, but they took with them all the art, science, and literature which, up to that time, civilization had produced. ”

“ Its most wonderful phenomena invariably occur on the boundary where two different periods of culture touch, and pass the one into the other; as in Nature, the seasons of the year and the times of the day exhibit the most glorious phenomena when they are merging into one another. ”

“ As fast as your foot carries you, you pass from scene to scene, each vigorously painted in the colours of the sun, each endeared by that hereditary spell of forests on the mind of man who still remembers and salutes the ancient refuge of his race. ”

“ The charm of rural landscapes, the romantic pleasure of mountain prospects, and sequestered dells and waterfalls, is but feebly appreciated by those who, unacquainted with the principles of art, have not learned to perceive in all the works of nature the operation of law, and to trace in all the diurnal aspect of creation the effect of many preceding revolutions. ”