A profusion of fancies and quotations is out of place in a love-letter. True feeling is always direct, and never deviates into by-ways to cull flowers of rhetoric.

Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through over-population, the most frightful of curses.

Constant companionship is not enjoyable, any more than constant eating. We sit too long at the table of friendship, when we outsit our appetites for each other's thoughts.

Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself. The judicious quoter, too, helps on what is much needed in the world, a freer circulation of good thoughts, pure feelings, and pleasant fancies.

Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.

Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.