The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!

Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement; but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight.

It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.

We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.

How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.