Methought I heard the crash of the huge trees as they fell beneath my axe; and then I bethought me that a man was intended to marry--I ought to marry; and if I married, where was I likely to be more happy as a husband and a father than in America, engaged in tilling the ground?
I fancied myself in America, engaged in tilling the ground, assisted by an enormous progeny.

Well, why not marry, and go and till the ground in America?
I was young, and youth was the time to marry in, and to labour in.

I had the use of all my faculties; my eyes, it is true, were rather dull from early study, and from writing the Life of Joseph Sell; but I could see tolerably well with them, and they were not bleared.

I felt my arms, and thighs, and teeth--they were strong and sound enough; so now was the time to labour, to marry, eat strong flesh, and beget strong children--the power of doing all this would pass away with youth, which was terribly transitory.

I bethought me that a time would come when my eyes would be bleared, and, perhaps, sightless; my arms and thighs strengthless and sapless; when my teeth would shake in my jaws, even supposing they did not drop out.