No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

There was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief.

It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.