Gardening has compensations out of all proportion to its goals. It is creation in the pure sense.

Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful.

Ah, snug lie those that slumber Beneath Conviction's roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, Their windows weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever And cold sleep all my kind, For I was born to shiver In the draft from an open mind.

Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!

Shunning the upstart shower, / The cold and cursory scrub, / I celebrate the power / That lies within the Tub.

Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.

Oh, princes thrive on caviar, the poor on whey and curds, / And politicians, I infer, must eat their windy words. / It's crusts that feed the virtuous, it's cake that comforts sinners, / But writers live on bread and praise at Literary Dinners.