Washington, in fact, had very little private life, but was eminently a public character.

Critics are a kind of freebooters in the republic of letters--who, like deer, goats and divers other graminivorous animals, gain subsistence by gorging upon buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, thereby robbing them of their verdure, and retarding their progress to maturity.

There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that trancends all other affections of the heart

The oil and wine of merry meeting.

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.

A mother is the truest friend we have when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity.

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.