Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.

When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.

Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.

Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?

The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.

The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous.