Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.

How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!

We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.

Consistency is the bugbear that frightens little minds.

I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

To fill the hour; that is happiness to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

But there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the apprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave. We must know our friends under ugly masks. The calamities are our friends.