"Do you think all the world is like this little world which those hills shut in?"
"No," — said Winthrop, his eye going over to the blue depths and golden ridge-tops, which it did not see; "— but —"
"Where does that river lead to?"
"It leads to Mannahatta. What of that?"
"There is a world there, Winthrop, — another sort of world, — where people know something; where other things are to be done than running plough furrows; where men may distinguish themselves! — where men may read and write; and do something great; and grow to be something besides what nature made them! — I want to be in that world."
They both paused.
"But what will you do, Rufus, to get into that world? — we are shut in here."
"I am not shut in!" said the elder brother; and brow and lip and nostril said it over again; — "I will live for something greater than this!"
There was a deep-drawn breath from the boy at his side.
"So would I, if I could. But what can we do?"