The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.

Had be been Shakespeare, he would then have written Troilus and Cressidato brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them.

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.

Is there anything in life so disenchanting as achievement?

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me.

A Morning Prayer The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man; help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day. Bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.

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.