The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.

Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love.

I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.

The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless-nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.