Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.
I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5-lb. perch in my lake. (Answering a reporter who asked him to name the best moment of his Presidency.)
When God threw me, a pebble, into this wondrous lake,
I disturbed its surface with countless circles.
But when I reached the depths,
I became very still.
Give me mine angle, we'll to th' river: there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finned fishes. My bended hook shall pierce Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up, I'll think them every one an Antony, And say, 'Ah, ha! are caught!'
I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake.
Fertile plains, every foot of them tilled, are of the first necessity; but great natural playgrounds of mountain, forest, cliff-walled lake, and brawling brook are also necessary to the full and many-sided development of a fine race.
What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fishlike smell; a kind of not of the newest poor-John. A strange fish!
For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed?
No lake so still but it has its wave. No circle so perfect but that it has its blur. I would change things for you if I could; As I can't you must take them as they are.