There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief.

You may try — but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

What should I do—how should I act now, this very day . . . What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching murmur which would soon gather distinctness.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

It's them as take advantage that get advantage I' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em.