These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.

...we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves - such a friend ought to be - do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

My own mind began to grow, watchful with anxoius thoughts.