The coarsest father gains a new impulse to labor from the moment of his baby's birth; he scarcely sees it when awake, and yet it is with him all the time. Every stroke he strikes is for his child. New social aims, new moral motives, come vaguely up to him.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.

But days even earlier than these, in April, have a charm, — even days that seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of March - wind lingers, chasing the squirrel from the tree and the children from the meadows. There is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, – there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down and put away.

In ancient Boeotia brides were carried home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in token, that they would never again be needed.