In England, I was quite struck to see how forward the girls are made--a child of 10 years old, will chat and keep you company, while her parents are busy or out etc.--with the ease of a woman of 26. But then, how does this education go on?--Not at all: it absolutely stops short.

an old woman ... is a person who has no sense of decency; if once she takes to living, the devil himself can't get rid of her.

Imagination took the reins, and reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to a race with so eccentric and flighty a companion.

How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.

To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind.

To save the mind from preying inwardly upon itself, it must be encouraged to some outward pursuit. There is no other way to elude apathy, or escape discontent; none other to guard the temper from that quarrel with itself, which ultimately ends in quarreling with all mankind.

Unused to the situations in which I find myself, and embarassed by the slightest difficulties, I seldom discover, till too late, how I ought to act.