Bright was the summer of 1296. The war which had desolated Scotland was then at an end.

The pure in heart are slow to credit calumnies, because they hardly comprehend what motives can be inducements to the alleged crimes.

Our griefs, as well as our joys, owe their strongest colors to our imaginations. There is nothing so grievous to be borne that pondering upon it will not make it heavier; and there is no pleasure so vivid that the animation of fancy cannot liven it.

Compulsion hardly restores right; love yields all things.

That grief is the most durable which flows inward, and buries its streams with its fountain, in the depths of the heart.

Guilt is a spiritual Rubicon.

It is not designed that the road should be made too smooth for us here upon earth.