Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.

I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.

Tis this desire of bending all things to our own purposes which turns them into confusion and is the chief source of every error in our lives.

There is yet another kind of matrimonial dialect (which naturally succeeds this of talking at each other), which may very properlybe styled The Language Contradictory.... In the former, however plain the object of satire may be exhibited to the whole company, yet there always remains some little covering.... But in this last method, the defiance becomes more open and the impetuosity with which these contradictions are uttered (although the subjects of them are often of the most indifferent nature) evidently prove that they arise from passion.

Their virtues lived in their children. The family changed its persons but not its manners, and they continued a blessing to the world from generation to generation.

I endeavor not to conceal that I believe there is a great mixture of desire in the passion which is called love--or rather, without any far-fetched strain on words, it may be called the companion of love.

If modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader.