Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.

A little amateur painting in water colors shows the innocent and the quiet mind.

By the time a man gets well into his seventies his continued existence is a mere miracle.

So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts.

To be honest, to be kind-to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation-above all, on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself-here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

But even if we take matrimony at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognized by the police, there must be degrees in the freedom and sympathy realized, and some principle to guide simple folk in their selection.

To have suffered ... sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth and has to be learned in the fire.