Wisdom can boast no higher attainment than happiness.

To a generous mind few circumstances are more afflicting than a discovery of perfidy in those whom we have trusted.

When the mind has once begun to yield to the weakness of superstition, trifles impress it with the force of conviction.

And since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them.

There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves.

O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it—the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.

Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions.