New and speedier modes of transportation

"But chiefly, like his senior countrymen, the young American studies new and speedier modes of transportation. Mistrusting the cunning of his small legs, he wishes to ride on the necks and shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter nothing can withstand - no seniority of age, no gravity of character; uncles, aunts, grandsires, grandams, fall an easy prey. He conforms to nobody, all conform to him: all caper and make mouths and babble and chirrup to him. On the strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair of laurelled heads."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Domestic Life"