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Rh rods. I do not know any better twigs for this purpose.

You can't read any genuine history, as that of Herodotus or the Venerable Bede, without perceiving that our interest depends not on the subject, but on the man, or the manner in which he treats the subject, and the importance he gives it. A feeble writer, and without genius, must have what he thinks a great theme, which we are already interested in through the accounts of others; but a genius,—a Shakespeare, for instance,—would make the history of his parish more interesting than another's history of the World. Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told, and it depends chiefly on the story-teller, the historian, whether that is interesting or not.

March 19, 1841. No true and brave person will be content to live on such a footing with his fellows and himself as the laws of every household now require. The house is the very haunt and lair of our vice. I am impatient to withdraw myself from under its roof as an unclean spot. There is no circulation there. It is full of stagnant and mephitic vapors.

March 19, 1842. When I walk in the fields of Concord and meditate on the destiny of this prosperous slip of the Saxon family, the unexhausted energies of this new country, I forget