Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman.

Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes; but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields; but theyare starving in the midst of its abundance: the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden; but they feel as reptiles that infest it.

I have never found, in anything outside of the four walls of my study, an enjoyment equal to sitting at my writing desk with a clean page, a new theme, and a mind awake.

No man knows what the wife of his bosom is until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.

There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.