To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.

The best recommendation I can have is my own talents, and the fruits of my own labors, and what others will not do for me, I will try and do for myself.

Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

Mathematics was hard, dull work, I thought; geography pleased me more. For my other studies, as well as for dancing, I was quite enthusiastic.