Uncles and aunts, and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a grandmother, at holiday time, is worth them all.

To her, the name of father was another name for love.

Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much love not one.

A little oil makes machinery work easy.

Well, it is a humiliating reflection, that the straightest road to a man's heart is through his palate.

I hate the word proper. If you tell me a thing is not proper, I immediately feel the most rabid desire to go 'neck and heels' into it.

Everything in the country, animate and inanimate, seems to whisper, be serene, be kind, be happy. We grow tolerant there unconsciously.