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Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow. As for work, we havent any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus dance，and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bellrope, as for a fire, that is,without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord,notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning,nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames,but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fireor to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a half-hours nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, Whats the news? as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. | 
