I write as the birds sing, because I must, and usually from the same source of inspiration.

In the economy of nature nothing is ever lost. I cannot belive that the soul of man shall prove the one exception

We never know the timber of a man's soul until something cuts into him deeply and brings the grain out strong. You've the making of a mighty fine piece of furniture.

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to force him to lay it down with a higher ideal of life than he had when he took it up.

Is he well educated?" "Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day.

What was money that it should make such dreadful things of men and women?

Do you know that being a stranger is the hardest thing that can happen to any one in all this world?