Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty - excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable - should persist after the beauty is gone.

... Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer.

Life is an admirable arrangement, isn't it, little mother. It is so clever of it to have June in every year and a morning in every day, let alone things like birds, and Shakespeare, and one's work.

If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shriek of your relations...don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbours in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck.

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.

Strange that the vanity which accompanies beauty - excusable, perhaps, when there is such great beauty, or at any rate understandable - should persist after the beauty is gone.

It is beautiful, beautiful to give; one of the very most beautiful things in life.