"But the dwellers in the country have little understanding of, and therefore little sympathy with, the longing for green fields which haunts the dweller in towns. The secret dream of almost every inhabitant in those dusky streets where even a fresh thought would scarcely seem to enter, is to realise an independence, and go and live in the country. Where is every holiday spent but in the country ! What do the smoky geraniums, so carefully tended in many a narrow street and blind alley attest, but the inherent love of the country ! To whom do the blooming and sheltered villas, which are a national feature in English landscape, belong, but to men who pass the greater part of their lives in small dim counting-houses ! This love of nature is divinely given to keep alive, even in the most toiling and world-worn existence, something of the imaginative and the apart. It is a positive good quality ; and one good quality has some direct, or indirect tendency to produce another."

“It is a humbling thing to human pride to observe that strength of mind does not preserve its possessor from indulging any favourite delusion; but that this very strength gives its own force to the belief.”

“It is a curious fact, that the true has always been more opposed at the outset than the false ; the circulation of the blood and vaccination nearly lost their discoverers credit and practice, while some vender of quack medicines makes a rapid fortune. This may perhaps be accounted for, simply, that the impostor addresses the multitude, while the scientific discoverer appeals to his brethren in knowledge, all of whom are inclined to deny, what, if admitted, must show, that a great part of their own research and acquirement has been in vain ; still he who trades on human credulity will have a good stock on hand, especially when the lure held forth is that of gain.”

“Count Egmont's Soliloquy In Prison.”

“It is a cruel proof of the want of generosity in human nature, that an affection too utterly self-sacrificing always meets with an evil return.”

“Charles went towards the table, but he had no lady-like powers of filling four sheets with nothing, and the letter was soon sealed.”

“There is no denying the fact, that in all sudden emergencies a woman has ten times the presence of mind, or, to use the common expression, her wits more about her than a man.”