Time & Perspective Quote by Ernest Thompson Seton

Restlessness is doing the talking here, dressed up as logistics. Seton’s line isn’t just about returning to Smith Landing; it’s the familiar frontier itch to go back out, do it “properly,” and claim a bigger story than the last one allowed. The phrasing “fired with a desire” turns planning into combustion. This isn’t a measured scientific proposal or a casual travel note - it’s mission energy, the kind that makes exhaustion feel like evidence of purpose.

The key move is the quiet downgrade of the previous trip: they covered “a mere corner of the range.” That “mere” is doing heavy rhetorical work. It implies the land is vast and their earlier effort was almost embarrassingly partial, which sets up the next expedition as not indulgence but necessity. Seton frames expansion as responsibility: more time, more territory, more legitimacy. The subtext is ambition with a moral alibi.

Context matters because “Buffalo” in Seton’s era is never just an animal; it’s a symbol in the long aftershock of near-extinction and westward conquest. Wanting to “cover more” carries the double edge of the early conservation movement: genuine reverence for wildlife paired with an acquisitive, cataloging gaze. As a leader figure, Seton writes like someone recruiting the reader into momentum. The sentence is a rallying cry that makes exploration feel inevitable, even virtuous - and makes restraint sound like failure.