The art of walking is at once suggestive of the dignity of man. Progressive motion alone implies power, but in almost every other instance it seems a power gained at the expense of self-possession.

No man flatters the woman he truly loves.

Legitimately produced, and truly inspired, fiction interprets humanity, informs the understanding, and quickens the affections. It reflects ourselves, warns us against prevailing social follies, adds rich specimens to our cabinets of character, dramatizes life for the unimaginative, daguerreotypes it for the unobservant, multiplies experience for the isolated or inactive, and cheers age, retirement and invalidism with an available and harmless solace.

Professed authors who overestimate their vocation are too full of themselves to be agreeable companions. The demands of their egotism are inveterate. They seem to be incapable of that abandon which is the requisite condition of social pleasure; and bent upon winning a tribute of admiration, or some hint which they can turn to the account of pen-craft, there is seldom in their company any of the delightful unconsciousness which harmonizes a circle.

Had we a privilege of calling up by the power of memory only such passages as were pleasing, unmixed with such as were disagreeable, we might then excite at pleasure an ideal happiness, perhaps more poignant than actual sensation.

To impress others we must be earnest; to amuse them, it is only necessary to be kindly and fanciful.

To be a good traveler argues one no ordinary philosopher. A sweet landscape must sometimes be allowed to atone for an indifferent supper, and an interesting ruin charm away the remembrance of a hard bed.