The clouds were never more fairly reflected in the water than now, as I look up the Cyanean Reach from Clamshell.

  A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it. As I look along over the grass toward the sun at Hosmer’s field, beyond Lupine Hill, I notice the shimmering effect of the gossamer,—which seems to cover it almost like a web,—occasioned by its motion, though the air is so still . . .

  In the midst of Ledum Swamp I came upon a white cat under the spruces and the water brush, which evidently had not seen me till I was within ten feet. There she stood, quite still, as if hoping to be concealed, only turning her bead slowly away from and toward me, looking at me thus two or three times . . .

  All through the excitement occasioned by Brown’s remarkable attempt and subsequent behavior, the Massachusetts Legislature, not taking any steps for the defense of her citizens who are likely to be carried to Virginia as witnesses and exposed to the violence of a slaveholding mob . . .

  If any person, in a lecture or a conversation, should now cite any ancient example of heroism, such as Cato, or Tell, or Winkelried, passing over the recent deeds and words of John Brown, I am sure that it would be felt by any intelligent audience of Northern men to be tame and inexcusably far-fetched . . . .