"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be
popular with God himself."

"Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought is
sexton to all the world."

"How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of
character?"

"Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to
expectations."

"I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be tender to
the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be tender."

* * * * *

There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our
summer plant called "Life-Everlasting," a _Gnaphalium_ like that, which
grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where the
chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty,
and by his love, (for it is immensely valued by the Swiss maidens,) climbs
the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot, with the
flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the _Gnaphalium
leontopodium_, but by the Swiss _Edelweisse_, which signifies _Noble
Purity_. Thoreau seemed to me living in the hope to gather this plant,
which belonged to him of right. The scale on which his studies proceeded
was so large as to require longevity, and we were the less prepared for
his sudden disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part,