For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of high...ways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility. I have looked after the wild stock of the town,... and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm.... I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons. In short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without boasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is just a job like any other job. I do it the best I can. It's never enough but I do it. When I go home, I don't take this st...uff with me, I leave it outside. But you, the way you carry it around inside, you must like it! Maybe you think that makes you a good cop. The way you're going you won't be good to anybody! Not even yourself! Somebody had to tell you. To get anything out of this life, you got to put something in it. From the heart!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend b...ecomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The cherry orchard is now mine!... I bought the estate on which my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even pe...rmitted in the kitchen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »