For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues.

But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.

The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.

God, immortality, duty - how inconceivable the first, how unbelievable the second, how peremptory and absolute the third.

Net the large fish and you are sure to have the small fry.

Leisure is gone,--gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow wagons, and the peddlers, who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.