In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.

What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in?

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.

There is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance; and, even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which we purchase it.

It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.

Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.

But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.