I may have made you feel that my greatest interest is in the woods, and that I am not consistent when I call on my trees and plants to yield of their store for my purposes.

Above everything else, the human proposition comes first, Ruth.

I do love my trees, bushes, and flowers, because they keep me at the fountain of life, and teach me lessons no book ever hints at; but above everything come my fellow men.
All I do is for them.

My heart is filled with feeling for the things you see around you here, but it would be joy to me to uproot the most beautiful plant I have if by so doing I could save you pain.

Other men have wives they love as well, little children they have fathered, big bodies useful to the world, that are sometimes crippled with disease.
There is nothing I would not give to allay the pain of humanity.