"The possession of beauty leads to an overweening admiration of it, and wealth gives a power of preserving this boon of nature in a manner forbidden to the poor, which will account fully for the extreme and perhaps blameable solicitude a few continue to feel on the subject."

"No person of fashion ever laughs out from the impulse of the heart,"

"What a life for a free man, born to the use of dogs and horses, pure air, and wide-spreading moors! — no wonder that, although junior partner, and as modest as he was high-spirited, he trod his counting-house floor with a step vigorous and springy as the young captain of a man-of-war, for he felt that he was an emancipated slave; nay, more, a British merchant. If not "monarch of all he surveyed," he was certainly monarch of all he desired, which is probably more than any one of those mighty personages who rule mankind could have honestly asserted."

"To find that you have been deceived, where you trusted so entirely ; trifled with, where all your deepest and sweetest emotions had been called into life, is the most acute—the most enduring sorrow of which that life is capable."

"... a disgust for political and fashionable society (which is, in fact, very generally to be found in those who are engaged in public offices, conscious that they do the work for which others are paid)"

"The free pen, prone to pour out the suggestions of artless affection, vivid imagination, or domestic anecdote, is as much woman's especial instrument as the needle."

"It is a very difficult thing for the most cunning, when they say one thing and mean another, to hide their wishes from one as practised as themselves ; and an awkward thing to commit yourselves in writing at all where a secret or a scheme is concerned."

"Alas! how seldom are any of us quite happy at the passing moment."

"The power of young Joy, like that of young Love, does not travel far on the dusty road of life in general."

"And no ring, if it does wither its circle, withers so utterly as a golden one. With only the false criterion of courtship to judge by, the wedded pair expect too much from each other ; and those who should make the most, make the least allowance. Tastes differ, tempers jar, trifles become important — as the grain of sand, which, nothing in itself, yet, gathered together, sweeps over the fertile plain, leaving no sign that there ever was blossom or fruit. The scar, which would soon pass, did distance or time intervene, can not heal from hourly irritation, One quarrel brings the memory of its predecessor, and grievances and mortifications are treasured up for perpetual reference. Too late, each finds out how utterly unsuited either is to the other ; they have not a feeling, a taste, or an opinion in common."

"... the horizon of matrimony is only seen through a glass, and that darkly, if the experience of others be the glass by which we make our observations."

"But Mr. Gooch liked bright colours; and, without going the length of kindling yellow, most gentlemen like them too. I think it is the mere preference of personal vanity, on the principle of contrast, their taste is dictated by self-consideration; a woman in sombre hues does not sufficiently throw out their own dark dress."

"-- shopping ! one of the pleasant necessities in a young lady's case who is about to change her condition, filled up the morning."

"Now there is nothing that puts people out of their way more than a change from their usual sitting-room ; it is almost as bad as moving to a new house."

"Those who have all their lives been accustomed to a cheerful and happy home, can scarcely understand the extent to which domestic tyranny is sometimes carried."

"Nothing is too unreasonable nor too unkind for selfishness, acted upon by vanity."

"While bills are being brought into the House of Commons to regulate every thing, from the sweeps crying "sweep," to "emancipation, vote by ballot, and free trade," is there no county member whose "time and talents" are devoted to "domestic policy," who will bring in a bill "for the better regulation of the marriage ceremony," and put the canonical hours later in the day? at all events, could there not be a special clause in favour of London? A spring morning there is the very reverse of Thomson's description; for "delicious mildness" read "a cutting east wind;" and for "veiled in roses" substitute "smoke and fog." The streets are given up to the necessities of life — to the milkman with his cans, the butcher with his tray, the baker with his basket; all belong to the material portion of existence. Now, marriage is (or ought to be) an affair of affections, sentiments, &c. The legislature ought to give it the full benefit of moonlight and wax-candles."

"Best intentions are not the best things in the world to marry upon."

"Whether wealth bring the curse of selfishness along with it, or that the leaven was in our nature, only dormant till called forth by circumstances, we are only too apt to misuse it, even as others have done before us."

"Hope and experience take two different sides of an argument."

"Conjugal government requires its treatises. A young woman setting out in life lacks a printed guide. Her cookery-book, however, may afford some useful hints till one be actually directed to the important subject just mentioned. Many well-known receipts are equally available for a batterie de cuisine or du cœur. Your roasted husband is subdued by the fire of fierce words and fiercer looks — your broiled husband, under the pepper and salt of taunt and innuendo — your stewed husband, under the constant application of petty vexations — your boiled husband dissolves under the watery influences — while your confectionized husband goes through a course of the blanc mange of flattery, or the preserves and sweets of caresses and smiles."

"Every age has its characteristic, and our present one is not behind its predecessors in that respect; it is the age of systems, every system enforced by a treatise."

"The first love-letter is an epoch in love's happy season — it makes assurance doubly sure — that which has hitherto, perhaps, only found utterance in sweet and hurried words, now seems to take a more tangible existence. A love-letter is a proof of how dearly, even in absence, you are remembered."

"Modern history might be told by a succession of dinners."

"Nothing deceives its possessor like vanity."

"Every one considers the world as made especially for their own purposes."

"Once set a strong mind thinking, and you have done all that it needs for its education."

"It is a notable fact that we keep ourselves most in the dark about ourselves."

"There is a mania in every class to be mistaken for what it is not. Many things innocent, nay, even graceful in themselves, become injurious and awkward by unseasonable imitation. We follow, we copy; first comfort goes, and then respectability. A false seeming is mistaken for refinement, and half life is thrown away in worthless sacrifices to a set of hollow idols called appearances."

"When we trace to their source the most important circumstances of our life, in what trifles have they originated! — a look, a word, are the ministers of fate."

"Nothing more indicates those tastes and habits which go so far towards both making and showing the character — as a person's sitting-room."

"Our own faults are those we are the first to detect, and the last to forgive, in others."

"The good and the generous action of which we feel incapable is a reproach when done by another."

"Joy and sorrow are the inseparable companions of death."

"No one dies but some one is glad of it."

"How many beautiful creations, how many glorious dreams went with him to the tomb ! but the unfulfilled destiny of genius is a mystery whose solution is not of earth. It is but one of those many voices wandering in this wilderness of ours that tell us, not here is our lot appointed to finish. We are here but for a space and a season ; for a task and a trial, and of the end no man knoweth. The earthly immortality of the mind is but a type of the heavenly immortality of the soul."

"That is love Which chooseth from a thousand only one To be the object of that tenderness Natural to every heart; which can resign Its own best happiness for one dear sake; Can bear with absence ; hath no part in hope, For hope is somewhat selfish : love is not, And doth prefer another to itself."

"If ever we forgive another's celebrity, it is when it fulfils our own prophecy."

"[From Ethel Churchill]: Good heavens ! what a precious thing love is ! what a gift of all hope, all happiness, into the power of another !—and yet, how often is it bestowed in vain ! wasted, utterly and cruelly wasted !"

"nd this is the dearest privilege of the poet—to soothe the sorrowing, and to excite the languid hour ; to renovate exhausted nature, by awakening it with the spiritual and the elevated ; and bringing around our common hours shadows from those more divine."

"It is a mood whose "profitless dejection” there are few among us but what have known. It is the result of the overstrained nerves, the worn-out frame—something of bodily weakness must mingle with it. We turn away from the future, we are too desponding to look forward. Every sorrow of the past seems to rise up, not only as a recollection of suffering, but as if each were an omen of what is to come. We feel as if even to wish were a folly ; or, worse, a tempting of fate. We have no confidence in our own good fortune; it seems as if the mere fact of wishing were enough to have that wish denied. A fretful discontent gnaws at the heart, the worse for being ashamed to confess it."

"There is an awe about death, even in the face the most familiar to us; it has already taken its likeness from the hereafter, so dreadful and so dark."

"[Chapter title]:{of death} The Usual Destiny of the Imagination"

"It is a most difficult art to give; for if, in giving, we also give the habit of dependence, our gift has been that of an evil spirit, which always proves fatal. What we should seek to give are, habits, not only of industry, but of prudence: to look forward, is the first great lesson of human improvement. In the assistance hitherto offered to those in need, the self-respect of the obliged has been too much forgotten : we have degraded, where we should have encouraged. The remedy lies with time, and with knowledge ; but there must be much to redress in the social system, which has luxury at one extreme, and starvation at the other."

"Charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfilment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent."

"There is something fearfully wrong in what we call our highly civilized state of society, when poverty can be permitted to take the ghastly shapes of suffering that it does. It is enough, if we did but think, to make the heart sick, when we know the misery, the abject misery, which surrounds us in this vast city ; and we might tremble to consider how much might be prevented—prevented both by individual and by general exertion."

"I believe there is not a woman in the world that would hesitate to part with the most costly toy in her possession, to save but an annoyance from the object she loved …"

"It is an awful thing how we forget The sacred ties that bind us each to each. Our pleasures might admonish us, and say, Tremble at that delight which is unshared; Its selfishness must be its punishment. All have their sorrows, and how strange it seems They do not soften more the general heart : Sorrows should be those universal links That draw all life together."

"Ah ! sad it is to see the deck Dismasted of some noble wreck ; And sad to see the marble stone Defaced, and with gray moss o'ergrown; And sad to see the broken lute For ever to its music mute. But what is lute, or fallen tower, Or ship sunk in its proudest hour, To awe and majesty combined In their worst shape — the ruined mind ?"

"God, in thy mercy, keep us with thy hand ! Dark are the thoughts that strive within the heart, When evil passions rise like sudden storms, Fearful and fierce ! Let us not act those thoughts ; Leave not our course to our unguided will. Left to ourselves, all crime is possible, And those who seemed the most removed from guilt, Have sunk the deepest !"