We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

You have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me.

Philosophers are only men in armor after all.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.

"The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature's founts - in short," said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they are weaned..."

You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn.