There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age.... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holinessโa beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade.
Alexander SmithSeated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural.
Alexander SmithWe bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
Alexander SmithIn the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October.
Alexander SmithIf we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.
Alexander SmithThe discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morningโfirst fallen flake of the coming snows of ageโis a disagreeable thing.... So are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. These things are disagreeable because they tell you that you are no longer youngโthat you have passed through youth, are now in middle age, and faring onward to the shadows in which, somewhere, a grave is hid.
Alexander Smith