We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

This is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it.

Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.

It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow.