I remember a hundred lovely lakes and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it as upon a thread of silk opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.
When the United States was founded the very idea of a nation premised on democratic principles of freedom and tolerance was viewed by the vast majority of the world as an experiment doomed to fail. Dictatorships monarchies and theocracies had for many centuries ruled the world.