“Why should the present impose upon us so much! I sit now upon a stump whose rings number centuries of growth- if I look around me I see that the very soil is composed of just such stumps-ancestors to this. I thrust this stick many aeons deep into the surface- and with my heel scratch a deeper furrow than the elements have ploughed here for a thousand years- If I listen I hear the peep of frogs which is older than the slime of Egypt- or a distant partridge drumming on a log- as it were the pulse beat of the summer air.”
HDT (Journal 1842 – 1844)
Thanks for that Henry.