Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind, and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." —WORDSWORTH.

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.