in Thoreau’s Journal:

June. July. August. The tortoise eggs are hatching beneath the surface in the sandy fields. You tell of active labors, of works of art and wars this past summer; meanwhile tortoise eggs underlie this turmoil. What events have transpired on the lit and airy surface three inches above them! …. Think what a summer to them! How many worthy men have died and had their funeral services preached since I saw the mother turtle bury her eggs here. They contained an undeveloped liquid then, they are now turtles. June, July, August the livelong summer what are they with their heats and fevers but sufficient to hatch a turtle in. Be not in haste; mind your private affairs.

Consider the turtle. A whole summer June, July, August is not too good nor too much to hatch a turtle in. Perhaps you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life and all things seem rushing to destruction, but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle’s pace…French empires rise or fall but the turtle is only developed so fast… So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleans. They have seen no berries, had no cares, yet the great world existed for them, as much for you.