A Hint for Wild Colonizationists.
Efforts have been made by the mighty of the earth to transplant large cities, states, and communities, by one great and sudden exertion, expecting to secure to the new capital the wealth, the dignity, the magnificent decorations and unlimited extent of the ancient city, which they desire to renovate; while, at the same time, they hope to begin a new succession of ages from the date of the new structure, to last, they imagine, as long, and with as much fame, as its predecessor, which the founder hopes his new metropolis may replace in all its youthful glories. But nature has her laws, which seem to apply to the social as well as the vegetable system. It appears to be a general rule that what is to last long should be slowly matured and gradually improved, while every sudden effort, however gigantic, to bring about the speedy execution of a plan calculated to endure for ages, is doomed to exhibit symptoms of premature decay from its very commencement. Thus, in a beautiful oriental tale, a dervise explains to the sultan how he had reared the magnificient trees among which they walked, by nursing their shoots from the seed; and the prince’s pride is damped when he reflects that those plantations, so simply reared, were gathering new vigor from each returning sun, while his own exhausted cedars, which had been transplanted by one violent effort, were drooping their majestic heads in the valley of Orez!
—Sir Walter Scott.
A Hint for Wild Colonizationists in The Liberator Vol. II., No. 52 (December 29, 1832). 206.