How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.

It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.

However, our fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it.

Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.

Every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us.

How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.