A Thousand-Mile Walk 
only walking on the edge of the vast wood, that 
I caught sight of the first palmetto in a grassy 
place, standing almost alone. A few magnolias 
were near it, and bald cypresses, but it was not 
shaded by them. They tell us that plants are 
perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is 
immortal, etc.; but this, I think, is something 
that we know very nearly nothing about. Any- 
how, this palm was indescribably impressive 
and told me grander things than I ever got 
from human priest. 
This vegetable has a plain gray shaft, round 
as a broom-handle, and a crown of varnished 
channeled leaves. It is a plainer plant than the 
humblest of Wisconsin oaks; but, whether rock- 
ing and rustling in the wind or poised thought- 
ful and calm in the sunshine, it has a power of 
expression not excelled by any plant high or low 
that I have met in my whole walk thus far. 
This, my first specimen, was not very tall, 
only about twenty-five feet high, with fifteen or 
twenty leaves, arching equally and evenly all 
around. Each leaf was about ten feet in length, 
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