When I see on the one side the inert bank,—for the sun acts on one side first,—and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the
laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me.
2.
Very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them.
3.
Boards, ……………………………………………………………….$ 8 03 ½
mostly shanty boards.
Refuse shingles for roof and sides, ……………………………… 4 00
Laths, ………………………………………………………………… 1 25
Two second-hand windows with glass, ………………………… 2 43
One thousand old brick, …………………………………………… 4 00
Two casks of lime, …………………………………………………. 2 40
That was high.
Hair, ……………………………………………………………………0 31
More than I needed.
Mantle-tree iron, …………………………………………………….. 0 15
Nails, ………………………………………………………………….. 3 90
Hinges and screws, ………………………………………………… 0 14
Latch, ………………………………………………………………….. 0 10
Chalk, …………………………………………………………………. 0 01
Transportation, ………………………………………………………. 1 40
I carried a good part on my back.
In all, ………………………………………………………………….. $ 28 12 ½
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.
4.
It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.
5.
Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe.
6.
Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth ormaiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.
7.
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.
8.
None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness.
9.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.
10.
A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.
11.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
12.
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.