Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.

To have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in all the world!

A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.

Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!

The heavy rain beat down the tender branches of vine and jessamine, and trampled on them in its fury; and when the lightning gleamed, it showed the tearful leaves shivering and cowering together at the window, and tapping at it urgently, as if beseeching to be sheltered from the dismal night.

I ate 'umble pie with an appetite.

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.