Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.

Well, the world has a million writers. One would think, then, that good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all our good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years.

Was never secret history but birds tell it in the bowers.

it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.

There the great Planter plants Of fruitful worlds the grain, And with a million spells enchants The souls that walk in pain.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.