Once in the world's history we were to have a Yankee prophet, and we have had him in Joe Smith. For good or for evil, he has left his track on the great pathway of life—or, to use the words of Horne, "knocked out for himself a window in the wall of the nineteenth century," whence his rude, bold, good-humored face will peer out upon the generations to come.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Once in the world's history we were to have a Yankee prophet, and we have had him in Joe Smith. For good or for evil, he has left his track on the great pathway of life—or, to use the words of Horne, "knocked out for himself a window in the wall of the nineteenth century," whence his rude, bold, good-humored face will peer out upon the generations to come." in the context of "John Greenleaf Whittier, The Stranger in Lowell (Boston: Waite, Peirce and Company, 1845), 31" to mean that wisdom is timeless.