Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity; and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance productions.

A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because love is more the study and business of her life.

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.

One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable; until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.

He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.

If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness; if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain.

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon on all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment.