Painting and music were the only things I worked at industriously and faithfully.

My books were always full of ink blots, always stained and covered with smeared sketches and pictures, which one draws idly when his attention wanders from his task.

It seems to me that it will be very wearisome to be a man.

If by chance I seated myself to write, she very slyly, very tenderly, seeking protection and caresses, would softly take her place on my knee and follow the comings and goings of my pen - sometimes effacing, with an unintentional stroke of her paw, lines of whose tenor she disapproved.

My emotions lose their force when I endeavor to interpret them, and my words seem very inept.

The moon of a bright silver, which dazzles by its shining, illumines a world which surely is no longer ours; for it resembles in nothing what may be seen in other lands.

Through the study of fossils I had already been initiated into the mysteries of prehistoric creations.