Books that have become classics - books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal - always remind me of retired colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.

After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.

The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow.

But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!

It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.

Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.