Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment.

Without the definiteness of sculpture and painting, music is, for that very reason, far more suggestive. Like Milton's Eve, an outline, an impulse, is furnished, and the imagination does the rest.

Whatever is genuine in social relations endures, despite of time, error, absence, and destiny; and that which has no inherent vitality had better die at once. A great poet has truly declared that constancy is no virtue, but a fact.

To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt to fully understand.

There are beauties of character which, like the night-blooming cereus, are closed against the glare and turbulence of every-day life, and bloom only in shade and solitude, and beneath the quiet stars.

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

To a nice ear, the quality of a voice is singularly affecting. Its depth seems to be allied to feeling; at least, the contralto notes alone give an adequate sense of pathos. They are born near the heart.