The proper education of poor children [is] the ground-work of almost every other kind of charity.... Without this foundation firstlaid, how much kindnessis unavoidably cast away?

A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love.

Ten cooks' shops! ...and all within three minutes' driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world ...had said - Come, let us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating - they are all gourmands - we shall rank high.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.