I have sat through an Italian opera, til, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded street, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!

In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.

I could never hate anyone I knew.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

To pile up honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness.

Presents, I often say, endear absents.

Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die.