Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation,--all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture.

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.

The Artist always has the masters in his eyes.

What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.

But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility of criticism.