it is really astonishing how few colors are inharmonious when they are profusely massed and have green for a background.

the various earth odors all have a separate tale to tell, and the leaf mold of the woods bears a wholly different fragrance from that of the soil under pasture turf, or the breath that the garden gives off in great sighs of relief when it is relaxed and refreshed by a summer shower.

Mother love is invariably held sacred, as it should be, but why has father love never had its due?

That is the stimulus of nature; it is never, never old, and always developing. Even the scarred, wrinkled earth herself is a mere infant among the old ladies and gentlemen that tread foot-paths in the sky.

Neither a garden nor a gardener can be made in one year, nor in one generation even.

what is life worth if one has nothing to give away? This lack, it seems to me, must be the sharpest pang of poverty.

what's the good of having news an' ye must coop it? It's like cold veal pie upon the chest for supper, the same being over old, under done, and dry o' gravy.