This is the age of oddities let loose.

It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.

And angling too, that solitary vice, What Izaak Walton sings or says: The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

He who is only just is cruel; who Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?

They never fail who die in a great cause.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.