I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be.

My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge.

The modern masters promise very little

He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.

It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.

The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished.

We never do what we wish when we wish it, and when we desire a thing earnestly, and it does arrive, that or we are changed, so that we slide from the summit of our wishes and find ourselves where we were.