There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.

The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.

It is good to love the unknown.

We encourage one another in mediocrity.

How I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself!

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.