Welcome, Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend. Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
I saw the long line of the vacant shore, The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand, And the brown rocks left bare on every hand, As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude, All her majestic loveliness Chastened and softened and subdued Into a more attractive grace, And with a human sense imbued. He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature.
Oh, what a glory doth this world put on, for him who with a fervent heart goes forth under the bright and glorious sky, and looks on duties well performed, and days well spent.
The moon is hidden behind a cloud... On the leaves is a sound of falling rain... No other sounds than these I hear; The hour of midnight must be near... So many ghosts, and forms of fright, Have started from their graves to-night, They have driven sleep from mine eyes away: I will go down to the chapel and pray.
A spirit of criticism, if indulged in, leads to a censoriousness of disposition that is destructive of all nobler feeling. The man who lives to find faults has a miserable mission.