Christmas is the glorious time of great Too-Much.

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.

Nature, at all events, humanly speaking, is manifestly very fond of color; for she has made nothing without it. Her skies are blue; her fields, green; her waters vary with her skies; her animals, vegetables, minerals, are all colored. She paints a great any of them in apparently superfluous hues, as if to show the dullest eye how she loves color.

I am persuaded there is no such thing after all as a perfect enjoyment of solitude; for the more delicious the solitude the more one wants a companion.

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands.

Sympathizing and selfish people are alike, both given to tears.

God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.