Guests can be, and often are, delightful, but they should never be allowed to get the upper hand.

Guests can be, and often are, delightful, but they should never be allowed to get the upper hand.

What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.

Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can every be lonely.

... without it (love), without, anyhow, the capacity for it, people didn't seem to be much good. Dry as old bones, cold as stones, they seemed to become, when love was done; inhuman, indifferent, self-absorbed, numb.

I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors . . . and they gave me to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago - whereas I don't believe a garden is ever finished. They have all gone now, thank heaven.

I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow.