The Land Is Dearer For The Sea,

When I Heard That There Were Artists, I Wished I Could Some Time Be One. If I Could Only Make A Rose Bloom On Paper, I Thought I Should Be Happy! Or If I Could At Last Succeed In Drawing The Outline Of Winter-stripped Boughs As I Saw Them Against The Sky, It Seemed To Me That I Should Be Willing To Spend Years In Trying.

God Be Thanked For The Thinkers Of Good And Noble Thoughts! It Wakes Up All The Best In Ourselves, To Come Into Close Contact With Others Greater And Better In Every Way Than We Are.

The Children With The Streamlets Sing, When April Stops At Last Her Weeping; And Every Happy Growing Thing Laughs Like A Babe Just Roused From Sleeping.

Labor, In Itself, Is Neither Elevating Or Otherwise. It Is The Laborer's Privilege To Ennoble His Work By The Aim With Which He Undertakes It, And By The Enthusiasm And Faithfulness He Puts Into It.

I Remember How Beautiful The Merrimac Looked To Me In Childhood, The First True River I Ever Knew; It Opened Upon My Sight And Wound Its Way Through My Heart Like A Dream Realized; Its Harebells, Its Rocks, And Its Rapids, Are Far More Fixed In My Memory Than Anything About The Sea.