As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.

It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.

As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.

We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.

As with ships, so with men; he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.

While nature thus very early and very abundantly feeds us, she is very late in tutoring us as to the proper methodization of our diet.