But I tell you - and mark my words - you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current.

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.

Youth has its romance, and maturity its wisdom, as morning and spring have their freshness, noon and summer their power, night and winter their repose. Each attribute is good in its own season.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

If there is one notion I hate more than another, it is that of marriage - I mean marriage in the vulgar, weak sense, as a mere matter of sentiment.

I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in me not in the external world. I asked, was it a mere nervous impression a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration.

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?