Most of the world would be surprised to know how few of our thoughts are really original with ourselves. What we write and say is, for the most part, a kind of mosaic interweaving of ideas and recollections gathered together out of other people’s talk or books. The combination and rearrangement of them is about all we can call our own. When a man does really evolve an original thought out of his own mind, it is the exception, rather than the rule. It is usually the fruit, either of patient study, or of fresh and vivid experience.
Lots of Railway Passes!
19th Century
About 700 railroad passes, kept in storage, date from between 1864 and 1910 and belonged primarily (but not entirely) to General William H. Seward, Jr. In 1872, there was the Adirondack Company Railroad, Allegheny Valley Railroad, Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, Brockville & Ottawa & Canada Central Railways, and Alabama & Chattanooga Railway. And that is just in the A’s.