LinnÊus said long ago, "_Nescio quÊ facies_ lÊta, glabra _plantis Americanis_: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect of American plants"; and I think that in this country there are no, or at most very few, _AfricanÊ bestiÊ_, African beasts, as the Romans called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre of the East Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in the woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild beasts. These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man--as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky--our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains--our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests--and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _lÊta_ and _glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America discovered? To Americans I hardly need to say: "Westward the star of empire takes its way." As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favourably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country. Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though we may be estranged from the South, we sympathise with the West. There is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of to-day.