The obscurest epoch is to-day.

There's never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a'terward.

If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temparate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

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.

The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.

The obscurest epoch is to-day.