The most tangible of all visible mysteries - fire.

To receive a present handsomely and in a right spirit, even when you have none to give in return, is to give one in return.

Improvement is nature.

The golden line is drawn between winter and summer. Behind all is blackness and darkness and dissolution. Before is hope, and soft airs, and the flowers, and the sweet season of hay; and people will cross the fields, reading or walking with one another; and instead of the rain that soaks death into the heart of green things, will be the rain which they drink with delight; and there will be sleep on the grass at midday, and early rising in the morning, and long moonlight evenings.

A friend of ours, who is an admirer of Isaac Walton, was struck, just as we were, with the likeness of the old angler's face to a fish.

The more sensible a woman is, supposing her not to be masculine, the more attractive she is in her proportionate power to entertain.

The rapturuous, wild, and ineffable pleasure of drinking at somebody else's expense