A spirit of criticism, if indulged in, leads to a censoriousness of disposition that is destructive of all nobler feeling. The man who lives to find faults has a miserable mission.

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,--the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time.

What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight, the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest, when we think of those we love only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly, when we remember our enemies only to forgive them.

I hear the wind among the trees Playing the celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest.

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

Talk not of wasted affection - affection never was wasted.