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Surely It Is A Matter Of Joy, That Your Faith In Jesus Has Been Preserved; The Comforter That Should Relieve You Is Not Far From You. But As You Are A Christian, In The Name Of That Saviour, Who Was Filled With Bitterness And Made Druken With Wormwood, I Conjre You To Have Recourse In Frequent Prayer To 'his God And Your God,' The God Of Mercies, And Father Of All Comfort. Your Poor Father Is, I Hope, Almost Senseless Of The Calamity; The Unconscious Instrument Of Divine Providence Knows It Not, And Your Mother Is In Heaven.

-Charles Lamb

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Surely It Is A

Charles Lamb

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Surely It Is A Matter Of Joy, That Your Faith In Jesus Has Been Preserved; The Comforter That Should Relieve You Is Not Far From You. But As You Are A Christian, In The Name Of That Saviour, Who Was Filled With Bitterness And Made Druken With Wormwood, I Conjre You To Have Recourse In Frequent Prayer To 'his God And Your God,' The God Of Mercies, And Father Of All Comfort. Your Poor Father Is, I Hope, Almost Senseless Of The Calamity; The Unconscious Instrument Of Divine Providence Knows It Not, And Your Mother Is In Heaven.

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You Look Wise, Pray Correct That Error.

A Clear Fire, A Clean Hearth, And The Rigour Of The Game.

My Only Books Were Woman's Looks,- And Folly 's All They 've Taught Me.

We Love To Chew The Cud Of A Foregone Vision; To Collect The Scattered Rays Of A Brighter Phantasm, Or Act Over Again, With Firmer Nerves, The Sadder Nocturnal Tragedies.

Who Has Not Felt How Sadly Sweet The Dream Of Home, The Dream Of Home, Steals O'er The Heart, Too Soon To Fleet, When Far O'er Sea Or Land We Roam?

Shakespeare Is One Of The Last Books One Should Like To Give Up, Perhaps The One Just Before The Dying Service In A Large Prayer Book.

Sassafras Wood Boiled Down To A Kind Of Tea, And Tempered With An Infusion Of Milk And Sugar Hath To Some A Delicacy Beyond The China Luxury.

I Am, In Plainer Words, A Bundle Of Prejudices - Made Up Of Likings And Dislikings.

Shut Not Thy Purse-strings Always Against Painted Distress. Act A Charity Sometimes. When A Poor Creature (outwardly And Visibly Such) Comes Before Thee, Do Not Stay To Inquire Whether The "seven Small Children," In Whose Name He Implores Thy Assistance, Have A Veritable Existence. Rake Not Into The Bowels Of Unwelcome Truth, To Save A Halfpenny. It Is Good To Believe Him.

Judge Not Man By His Outward Manifestation Of Faith; For Some There Are Who Tremblingly Reach Out Shaking Hands To The Guidance Of Faith; Others Who Stoutly Venture In The Dark Their Human Confidence, Their Leader, Which They Mistake For Faith; Some Whose Hope Totters Upon Crutches; Others Who Stalk Into Futurity Upon Stilts. The Difference Is Chiefly Constitutional With Them.

Coleridge Declares That A Man Cannot Have A Good Conscience Who Refuses Apple Dumplings, And I Confess That I Am Of The Same Opinion.

Separate From The Pleasure Of Your Company, I Don't Much Care If I Never See Another Mountain In My Life.

I Have Had Playmates, I Have Had Companions; In My Days Of Childhood, In My Joyful School Days - All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.

Milton Almost Requires A Solemn Service Of Music To Be Played Before You Enter Upon Him. But He Brings His Music, To Which Who Listen Had Need Bring Docile Thoughts And Purged Ears.

A Persian's Heaven Is Eas'ly Made: 't Is But Black Eyes And Lemonade.

Opinions Is A Species Of Property - I Am Always Desirous Of Sharing.

And The Tear That We Shed, Though In Secret It Rolls, Shall Long Keep His Memory Green In Our Souls.

His Voice Was The Most Obnoxious Squeak I Ever Was Tormented With.

A Flow'ret Crushed In The Bud, A Nameless Piece Of Babyhood, Was In Her Cradle-coffin Lying; Extinct, With Scarce The Sense Of Dying

The World Meets Nobody Half Way.

What A Dead Thing Is A Clock, With Its Ponderous Embowelments Of Lead And Brass, Its Pert Or Solemn Dullness Of Communication, Compared With The Simple Altar-like Structure And Silent Heart-language Of The Old Sundials! It Stood As The Garden God Of Christian Gardens. Why Is It Almost Everywhere Vanished? If Its Business-use Be Superseded By More Elaborate Inventions, Its Moral Uses, Its Beauty, Might Have Pleaded For Its Continuance.

Clap An Extinguisher Upon Your Irony If You Are Unhappily Blessed With A Vein Of It.

The True Poet Dreams Being Awake.

I Am Determined That My Children Shall Be Brought Up In Their Father's Religion, If They Can Find Out What It Is.

I'd Like To Grow Very Old As Slowly As Possible.

It Is Good To Love The Unknown.

Ceremony Is An Invention To Take Off The Uneasy Feeling Which We Derive From Knowing Ourselves To Be Less The Object Of Love And Esteem With A Fellow-creature Than Some Other Person Is. It Endeavours To Make Up, By Superior Attentions In Little Points, For That Invidious Preference Which It Is Forced To Deny In The Greater.

May Be The Truth Is, That One Pipe Is Wholesome, Two Pipes Toothsome, Three Pipes Noisome, Four Pipes Fulsome, Five Pipes Quarrelsome; And That's The Some On't.

Time Partially Reconciles Us To Anything. I Gradually Became Content--doggedly Contented, As Wild Animals In Cages.

Were I Diogenes, I Would Not Move Out Of A Kilderkin Into A Hogshead, Though The First Had Had Nothing But Small Beer In It, And The Second Reeked Claret.

Rags, Which Are The Reproach Of Poverty, Are The Beggar's Robes, And Graceful Insignia Of His Profession, His Tenure, His Full Dress, The Suit In Which He Is Expected To Show Himself In Public.

I Know That A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature, Not Even Excepting The Delicate Creatures Which Bear Them.

Man Is A Gaming Animal. He Must Always Be Trying To Get The Better In Something Or Other.

I Am Accounted By Some People As A Good Man. How Cheap That Character Is Acquired! Pay Your Debts, Don't Borrow Money, Nor Twist Your Kitten's Neck Off, Nor Disturb A Congregation, Etc., Your Business Is Done. I Know Things Of Myself, Which Would Make Every Friend I Have Fly Me As A Plague Patient.

There Is A Pleasure In Affecting Affectation.

He Has Left Off Reading Altogether, To The Great Improvement Of His Originality.

I Toiled After It, Sir, As Some Men Toil After Virtue.

A Sweet Child Is The Sweetest Thing In Nature.

Much Depends Upon When And Where You Read A Book. In The Five Or Six Impatient Minutes Before The Dinner Is Quite Ready, Who Would Think Of Taking Up The Faerie Queen For A Stopgap, Or A Volume Of Bishop Andrews's Sermons?

A Presentation Copy, Reader,-if Haply You Are Yet Innocent Of Such Favours-is A Copy Of A Book Which Does Not Sell, Sent You By The Author.

There Are Like To Be Short Graces Where The Devil Plays Host.

Oh Stay! Oh Stay! Joy So Seldom Weaves A Chain Like This To-night, That Oh 't Is Pain To Break Its Links So Soon.

The Only True Time Which A Man Can Properly Call His Own, Is That Which He Has All To Himself; The Rest, Though In Some Sense He May Be Said To Live It, Is Other People's Time, Not His.

Boys Are Capital Fellows In Their Own Way, Among Their Mates; But They Are Unwholesome Companions For Grown People.

How Some They Have Died, And Some They Have Left Me, And Some Are Taken From Me; All Are Departed; All, All Are Gone, The Old Familiar Faces.

There Is Absolutely No Such Thing As Reading But By A Candle. We Have Tried The Affectation Of A Book At Noon-day In Gardens, And In Sultry Arbours, But It Was Labor Thrown Away. Those Gay Motes In The Beam Come About You, Hovering And Teasing, Like So Many Coquets, That Will Have You All To Their Self, And Are Jealous Of Your Abstractions. By The Midnight Taper, The Writers Digests His Meditations. By The Same Light We Must Approach To Their Perusal, If We Would Catch The Flame, The Odour.

I Have Passed All My Days In London, Until I Have Formed As Many And Intense Local Attachments As Any Of You Mountaineers Can Have Done With Dead Nature.

Trample Not On The Ruins Of A Man.

Think What You Would Have Been Now, If Instead Of Being Fed With Tales And Old Wives' Fables In Childhood, You Had Been Crammed With Geography And Natural History!

To Pile Up Honey Upon Sugar, And Sugar Upon Honey, To An Interminable Tedious Sweetness.

A Man Can Never Have Too Much Time To Himself, Nor Too Little To Do. Had I A Little Son, I Would Christen Him Nothing-to-do; He Should Do Nothing. Man, I Verily Believe, Is Out Of His Element As Long As He Is Operative. I Am Altogether For The Life Contemplative.

A Garden Was The Primitive Prison, Till Man With Promethean Felicity And Boldness, Luckily Sinned Himself Out Of It.

You May Derive Thoughts From Others; Your Way Of Thinking, The Mould In Which Your Thoughts Are Cast, Must Be Your Own.

What A Place To Be In Is An Old Library! It Seems As Though All The Souls Of All The Writers That Have Bequeathed Their Labours To These Bodleians Were Reposing Here As In Some Dormitory, Or Middle State. I Do Not Want To Handle, To Profane The Leaves, Their Winding-sheets. I Could As Soon Dislodge A Shade. I Seem To Inhale Learning, Walking Amid Their Foliage; And The Odor Of Their Old Moth-scented Coverings Is Fragrant As The First Bloom Of The Sciential Apples Which Grew Amid The Happy Orchard.

Can We Ring The Bells Backward? Can We Unlearn The Arts That Pretend To Civilize, And Then Burn The World? There Is A March Of Science; But Who Shall Beat The Drums For Its Retreat?

I Conceive Disgust At Those Impertinent And Misbecoming Familiarities, Inscribed Upon Your Ordinary Tombstones. Every Dead Man Must Take Upon Himself To Be Lecturing Me With His Odious Truism, That "such As He Now Is, I Must Shortly Be." Not So Shortly, Friend, Perhaps, As Thou Imaginest. In The Meantime I Am Alive. I Move About. I Am Worth Twenty Of Thee. Know Thy Betters!

Anything Awful Makes Me Laugh. I Misbehaved Once At A Funeral.

(the Pig) Hath A Fair Sepulchre In The Grateful Stomach Of The Judicious Epicure - And For Such A Tomb Might Be Content To Die.

This Very Night I Am Going To Leave Off Tobacco! Surely There Must Be Some Other World In Which This Unconquerable Purpose Shall Be Realised.

No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference. It Is That From Which All Date Their Time, And Count Upon What Is Left. It Is The Nativity Of Our Common Adam.

In The Negro Countenance You Will Often Meet With Strong Traits Of Benignity. I Have Felt Yearnings Of Tenderness Towards Some Of These Faces.

Since All The Maids Are Good And Lovable, From Whence Come The Bad Wives?

When Thus The Heart Is In A Vein Of Tender Thought, The Simplest Strain Can Touch It With Peculiar Power.

Fly Not Yet; 't Is Just The Hour When Pleasure, Like The Midnight Flower That Scorns The Eye Of Vulgar Light, Begins To Bloom For Sons Of Night And Maids Who Love The Moon.

Is The World All Grown Up? Is Childhood Dead? Or Is There Not In The Bosom Of The Wisest And The Best Some Of The Child's Heart Left, To Respond To Its Earliest Enchantments?

Half As Sober As A Judge.

Nothing Puzzles Me More Than Time And Space; And Yet Nothing Troubles Me Less, As I Never Think About Them.

Credulity Is The Man's Weakness, But The Child's Strength.

You Do Not Play Then At Whist, Sir? Alas, What A Sad Old Age You Are Preparing For Yourself!

Whose Wit In The Combat, As Gentle As Bright, Ne'er Carried A Heart-stain Away On Its Blade.

She Unbent Her Mind Afterwards - Over A Book.

Riches Are Chiefly Good Because They Give Us Time.

I Have Been Trying All My Life To Like Scotchmen, And Am Obliged To Desist From The Experiment In Despair.

I Ask And Wish Not To Appear More Beauteous, Rich Or Gay: Lord, Make Me Wiser Every Year, And Better Every Day.

Returning To Town In The Stage-coach, Which Was Filled With Mr. Gilman's Guests, We Stopped For A Minute Or Two At Kentish Town. A Woman Asked The Coachman, "are You Full Inside?" Upon Which Lamb Put His Head Through The Window And Said, "i Am Quite Full Inside; That Last Piece Of Pudding At Mr. Gilman's Did The Business For Me."

Asparagus Inspires Gentle Thoughts.

New Year's Day Is Every Man's Birthday.

To Be Thankful For What We Grasp Exceeding Our Proportion Is To Add Hypocrisy To Injustice.

I Cannot Sit And Think; Books Think For Me.

Not Childhood Alone, But The Young Man Till Thirty, Never Feels Practically That He Is Mortal.

Cultivate Simplicity, Coleridge.

All People Have Their Blind Side-their Superstitions.

The Measure Of Choosing Well, Is, Whether A Man Likes And Finds Good In What He Has Chosen.

Not Many Sounds In Life, And I Include All Urban And All Rural Sounds, Exceed In Interest A Knock At The Door.

Philanthropy, Like Charity, Must Begin At Home.

How I Like To Be Liked, And What I Do To Be Liked!

Summer, As My Friend Coleridge Waggishly Writes, Has Set In With Its Usual Severity.

Some People Have A Knack Of Putting Upon You Gifts Of No Real Value, To Engage You To Substantial Gratitude. We Thank Them For Nothing.

Merit, God Knows, Is Very Little Rewarded.

The Man Must Have A Rare Recipe For Melancholy, Who Can Be Dull In Fleet Street.

Who First Invented Work, And Bound The Free And Holiday-rejoicing Spirit Down . . . . To That Dry Drudgery At The Desk's Dead Wood? . . . . Sabbathless Satan!

It Is Good To Have Friends At Court.

Ay, Down To The Dust With Them, Slaves As They Are! From This Hour Let The Blood In Their Dastardly Veins, That Shrunk At The First Touch Of Liberty's War, Be Wasted For Tyrants, Or Stagnate In Chains.

I Could Never Hate Anyone I Knew.

Friend Of My Bosom, Thou More Than A Brother, Why Wert Thou Not Born In My Father's Dwelling?

He Might Have Proved A Useful Adjunct, If Not An Ornament To Society.

No One Ever Regarded The First Of January With Indifference.

Books Of Quick Interest, That Hurry On For Incidents Are For The Eye To Glide Over Only. It Will Not Do To Read Them Out. I Could Never Listen To Even The Better Kind Of Modern Novels Without Extreme Irksomeness.

Man, While He Loves, Is Never Quite Depraved.

Wert Thou All That I Wish Thee, Great, Glorious, And Free, First Flower Of The Earth And First Gem Of The Sea.

Why Are We Never Quite At Ease In The Presence Of A Schoolmaster? Because We Are Conscious That He Is Not Quite At His Ease In Ours. He Is Awkward, And Out Of Place In The Society Of His Equals. He Comes Like Gulliver From Among His Little People, And He Cannot Fit The Stature Of His Understanding To Yours.

We Were Happier When We Were Poorer, But We Were Also Younger.

Pain Is Life - The Sharper, The More Evidence Of Life.

When Twilight Dews Are Falling Soft Upon The Rosy Sea, Love, I Watch The Star Whose Beam So Oft Has Lighted Me To Thee, Love.

We Are Nothing; Less Than Nothing, And Dreams. We Are Only What Might Have Been.

Every Commonplace Or Trite Observation Is Not A Truism.

A Pun Is Not Bound By The Laws Which Limit Nicer Wit. It Is A Pistol Let Off At The Ear; Not A Feather To Tickle The Intellect.

We Are Ashamed At The Sight Of A Monkey--somehow As We Are Shy Of Poor Relations.

We Are Nothing; Less Than Nothing, And Dreams. We Are Only What Might Have Been, And Must Wait Upon The Tedious Shores Of Lethe Millions Of Ages Before We Have Existence, And A Name.

The Drinking Man Is Never Less Himself Than During His Sober Intervals.

Tis The Privilege Of Friendship To Talk Nonsense, And To Have Nonsense Respected.

Funny Best Friend

I Have Something More To Do Than To Feel.

Go Where Glory Waits Thee! But While Fame Elates Thee, Oh, Still Remember Me!

Shall I Ask The Brave Soldier Who Fights By My Side In The Cause Of Mankind, If Our Creeds Agree?

To Sigh, Yet Feel No Pain; To Weep, Yet Scarce Know Why; To Sport An Hour With Beauty's Chain, Then Throw It Idly By.

I Give Thee All,-i Can No More, Though Poor The Off'ring Be; My Heart And Lute Are All The Store That I Can Bring To Thee.

Let Us Live For The Beauty Of Our Own Reality.

Farewell, Farewell To Thee, Araby's Daughter! Thus Warbled A Peri Beneath The Dark Sea.

Science Has Succeeded To Poetry, No Less In The Little Walks Of Children Than With Men. Is There No Possibility Of Averting This Sore Evil?

't Is Sweet To Think That Where'er We Rove We Are Sure To Find Something Blissful And Dear; And That When We 're Far From The Lips We Love, We 've But To Make Love To The Lips We Are Near.

Is It A Stale Remark To Say That I Have Constantly Found The Interest Excited At A Playhouse To Bear An Exact Inverse Proportion To The Price Paid For Admission?

Mother's Love Grows By Giving.

No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Mere Caprice.

A Book Reads The Better Which Is Our Own, And Has Been So Long Known To Us, That We Know The Topography Of Its Blots, And Dog's Ears, And Can Trace The Dirt In It To Having Read It At Tea With Buttered Muffins.

I Have Sat Through An Italian Opera, Til, For Sheer Pain, And Inexplicable Anguish, I Have Rushed Out Into The Noisiest Places Of The Crowded Street, To Solace Myself With Sounds Which I Was Not Obliged To Follow And Get Rid Of The Distracting Torment Of Endless, Fruitless, Barren Attention!

I Can Scarce Bring Myself To Believe, That I Am Admitted To A Familiar Correspondence, And All The License Of Friendship, With A Man Who Writes Blank Verse Like Milton.

The Beggar Wears All Colors Fearing None.

The Greatest Pleasure I Know, Is To Do A Good Action By Stealth, And To Have It Found Out By Accident.

O Money, Money, How Blindly Thou Hast Been Worshipped, And How Stupidly Abused! Thou Are Health And Liberty And Strength, And He That Has Thee May Rattle His Pockets At The Foul Fiend!

Newspapers Always Excite Curiosity. No One Ever Puts One Down Without The Feeling Of Disappointment.

I Am Retired Leisure. I Am To Be Met With In Trim Gardens. I Am Already Come To Be Known By My Vacant Face And Careless Gesture, Perambulating At No Fixed Pace Nor With Any Settled Purpose. I Walk About; Not To And From.

The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls The Soul Of Music Shed, Now Hangs As Mute On Tara's Walls As If That Soul Were Fled. So Sleeps The Pride Of Former Days, So Glory's Thrill Is O'er; And Hearts That Once Beat High For Praise Now Feel That Pulse No More.

I Counsel Thee, Shut Not Thy Heart, Nor Thy Library.

Brandy And Water Spoils Two Good Things.

I Own That I Am Disposed To Say Grace Upon Twenty Other Occasions In The Course Of The Day Besides My Dinner. I Want A Form For Setting Out Upon A Pleasant Walk, For A Moonlight Ramble, For A Friendly Meeting, Or A Solved Problem. Why Have We None For Books, These Spiritual Repasts-a Grace Before Milton-a Grace Before Shakespeare-a Devotional Exercise Proper To Be Said Before Reading The Fairie Queene?

Gluttony And Surfeiting Are No Proper Occasions For Thanksgiving.

The Laws Of Pluto's Kingdom Know Small Difference Between King And Cobbler, Manager And Call-boy; And, If Haply Your Dates Of Life Were Conterminant, You Are Quietly Taking Your Passage, Cheek By Cheek (o Ignoble Levelling Of Death) With The Shade Of Some Recently Departed Candle-snuffer.

Beholding Heaven, And Feeling Hell.

Don't Introduce Me To That Man! I Want To Go On Hating Him, And I Can't Hate A Man Whom I Know.

Of All Sound Of All Bells... Most Solemn And Touching Is The Peal Which Rings Out The Old Year.

The Pilasters Reaching Down Were Adorned With A Glistering Substance (i Know Not What) Under Glass (as It Seemed), Resembling - A Homely Fancy, But I Judged It To Be Sugar-candy; Yet To My Raised Imagination, Divested Of Its Homelier Qualities, It Appeared A Glorified Candy.

A Laxity Pervades The Popular Use Of Words.

Our Spirits Grow Gray Before Our Hairs.

I Even Think That, Sentimentally, I Am Disposed To Harmony. But Organically I Am Incapable Of A Tune.

I Grow Ominously Tired Of Official Confinement. Thirty Years Have I Served The Philistines, And My Neck Is Not Subdued To The Yoke. You Don't Know How Wearisome It Is To Breathe The Air Of Four Pent Walls Without Relief Day After Day, All The Golden Hours Of The Day Between Ten And Four Without Ease Or Interposition ... These Pestilential Clerk-faces Always In One's Dish. O For A Few Years Between The Grave And The Desk!

Tis Unpleasant To Meet A Beggar. It Is Painful To Deny Him; And, If You Relieve Him, It Is So Much Out Of Your Pocket.

Surely It Is A Matter Of Joy, That Your Faith In Jesus Has Been Preserved; The Comforter That Should Relieve You Is Not Far From You. But As You Are A Christian, In The Name Of That Saviour, Who Was Filled With Bitterness And Made Druken With Wormwood, I Conjre You To Have Recourse In Frequent Prayer To 'his God And Your God,' The God Of Mercies, And Father Of All Comfort. Your Poor Father Is, I Hope, Almost Senseless Of The Calamity; The Unconscious Instrument Of Divine Providence Knows It Not, And Your Mother Is In Heaven.

A Poor Relation Is The Most Irrelevant Thing In Nature, A Piece Of Non Pertinent Correspondence, An Odious Approximation, A Haunting Conscience, A Preposterous Shadow, Lengthening In The Noontide Of Our Prosperity.

I Am In Love With This Green Earth.

Those Evening Bells! Those Evening Bells! How Many A Tale Their Music Tells Of Youth And Home, And That Sweet Time When Last I Heard Their Soothing Chime!

What Have I Gained By Health? Intolerable Dullness. What By Mode Meals? A Total Blank.

This World Is All A Fleeting Show, For Man's Illusion Given The Smiles Of Joy, The Tears Of Woe, Deceitful Shine, Deceitful Flow, Theres Nothing True But Heaven.

As Half In Shade And Half In Sun This World Along Its Path Advances, May That Side The Sun 's Upon Be All That E'er Shall Meet Thy Glances!

Damn The Age. I'll Write For Antiquity.

Thus, When The Lamp That Lighted The Traveller At First Goes Out, He Feels Awhile Benighted, And Looks Around In Fear And Doubt. But Soon, The Prospect Clearing, By Cloudless Starlight On He Treads, And Thinks No Lamp So Cheering As That Light Which Heaven Sheds.

A Laugh Is Worth A Hundred Groans In Any Market.

It Is Rather An Unpleasant Fact, That The Ugliest And Awkwardest Of Brute Animals Have The Greatest Resemblance To Man: The Monkey And The Bear. The Monkey Is Ugly Too (so We Think) Because He Is Like Man--as The Bear Is Awkward, Because The Cumbrous Action Of Its Huge Paws Seems To Be A Preposterous Imitation Of The Motions Of Human Hands. Men And Apes Are The Only Animals That Have Hairs On The Under Eye-lid. Let Kings Know This.

Riddle Of Destiny, Who Can Show What Thy Short Visit Meant, Or Know What Thy Errand Here Below?

Literature Is A Bad Crutch, But A Good Walking-stick.

In Every Thing That Relates To Science, I Am A Whole Encyclopaedia Behind The Rest Of The World.

How Often You Are Irresistibly Drawn To A Plain, Unassuming Woman, Whose Soft Silvery Tones Render Her Positively Attractive! In The Social Circle, How Pleasant It Is To Hear A Woman Talk In That Low Key Which Always Characterizes The True Lady. In The Sanctuary Of Home, How Such A Voice Soothes The Fretful Child And Cheers The Weary Husband!

May My Last Breath Be Drawn Through A Pipe, And Exhaled In A Jest.

For With G. D., To Be Absent From The Body Is Sometimes (not To Speak Profanely) To Be Present With The Lord.

Man Is A Gaming Animal.

We Do Not Go To The Theatre Like Our Ancestors, To Escape From The Pressure Of Reality, So Much As To Confirm Our Experience Of It.

The Truant Fancy Was A Wanderer Ever.

Oft In The Stilly Night, Ere Slumber's Chain Has Bound Me, Fond Memory Brings The Light Of Other Days Around Me; The Smiles, The Tears, Of Boyhood's Years, The Words Of Love Then Spoken; The Eyes That Shone Now Dimmed And Gone, The Cheerful Hearts Now Broken.

Not If I Know Myself At All.

Our Appetites, Of One Or Another Kind, Are Excellent Spurs To Our Reason, Which Might Otherwise But Feebly Set About The Great Ends Of Preserving And Continuing The Species.

The Vices Of Some Men Are Magnificent.

There Is Not In The Wide World A Valley So Sweet As That Vale In Whose Bosom The Bright Waters Meet.

The Muses Were Dumb While Apollo Lectured.

In The Indications Of Female Poverty There Can Be No Disguise. No Woman Dresses Below Herself From Caprice.

Alas! How Light A Cause May Move Dissension Between Hearts That Love! Hearts That The World In Vain Had Tried, And Sorrow But More Closely Tied; That Stood The Storm When Waves Were Rough, Yet In A Sunny Hour Fall Off, Like Ships That Have Gone Down At Sea When Heaven Was All Tranquillity.

Lawyers, I Suppose, Were Children Once.

The Going Away Of Friends Does Not Make The Remainder More Precious. It Takes So Much From Them As There Was A Common Link. A. B. And C. Make A Party. A. Dies. B. Not Only Loses A. But All A.'s Part In C. C. Loses A.'s Part In B., And So The Alphabet Sickens By Subtraction Of Interchangeables.

Oh For A Tongue To Curse The Slave Whose Treason, Like A Deadly Blight, Comes O'er The Councils Of The Brave, And Blasts Them In Their Hour Of Might!

If Dirt Were Trumps, What Hands You Would Hold!

A Presentation Copy...is A Copy Of A Book Whoch Does Not Sell, Sent You By The Author, With His Foolish Autograph At The Beginning Of It; For Which, If A Stranger, He Only Demands Your Friendship; If A Brother Author, He Expects From You A Book Of Yours, Which Does Not Sell, In Return.

Antiquity! Thou Wondrous Charm, What Art Thou? That Being Nothing Art Everything? When Thou Wert, Thou Wert Not Antiquity - Then Thou Wert Nothing, But Hadst A Remoter Antiquity, As Thou Calledst It, To Look Back To With Blind Veneration; Thou Thyself Being To Thyself Flat, Jejune, Modern! What Mystery Lurks In This Retroversion? Or What Half Januses Are We, That Cannot Look Forward With The Same Idolatry With Which We For Ever Revert! The Mighty Future Is As Nothing, Being Everything! The Past Is Everything, Being Nothing!

Be Not Frightened At The Hard Words "imposition," "imposture;" Give And Ask No Questions. Cast Thy Bread Upon The Waters. Some Have, Unawares, Entertained Angels.

The Red-letter Days, Now Become, To All Intents And Purposes, Dead-letter Days.

Men Marry For Fortune, And Sometimes To Please Their Fancy; But, Much Oftener Than Is Suspected, They Consider What The World Will Say Of It--how Such A Woman In Their Friends' Eyes Will Look At The Head Of A Table. Hence We See So Many Insipid Beauties Made Wives Of, That Could Not Have Struck The Particular Fancy Of Any Man That Had Any Fancy At All.

The Good Things Of Life Are Not To Be Had Singly, But Come To Us With A Mixture; Like A School-boy's Holiday, With A Task Affixed To The Tail Of It.

To Be Sick Is To Enjoy Monarchical Prerogatives.

The Teller Of A Mirthful Tale Has Latitude Allowed Him. We Are Content With Less Than Absolute Truth.

Latitude And Longitude

From A Poor Man, Poor In Time, I Was Suddenly Lifted Up Into A Vast Revenue; I Could See No End Of My Possessions; I Wanted Some Steward, Or Judicious Bailiff, To Manage My Estates In Time For Me.

How Sickness Enlarges The Dimensions Of A Man's Self To Himself! Supreme Selfishness Is Inculcated Upon Him As His Only Duty.

An Album Is A Garden, Not For Show Planted, But Use; Where Wholesome Herbs Should Grow.

Satire Does Not Look Pretty Upon A Tombstone.

And When Once The Young Heart Of A Maiden Is Stolen, The Maiden Herself Will Steal After It Soon.

He Who Hath Not A Dram Of Folly In His Mixture Hath Pounds Of Much Worse Matter In His Composition.

A Man May Do Very Well With A Very Little Knowledge, And Scarce Be Found Out In Mixed Company; Everybody Is So Much More Ready To Produce His Own, Than To Call For A Display Of Your Acquisitions.

Oh, The Pleasure Of Eating My Dinner Alone!

The English Writer, Charles Lamb, Said One Day: "i Hate That Man." "but You Don't Know Him." "of Course, I Don't," Said Lamb. "do You Think I Could Possibly Hate A Man I Know?"

A Poor Relation—is The Most Irrelevant Thing In Nature.

Here Cometh April Again, And As Far As I Can See The World Hath More Fools In It Than Ever.

Funny Inspirational

Cards Are War, In Disguise Of A Sport.

No Work Is Worse Than Overwork; The Mind Preys On Itself,--the Most Unwholesome Of Food.

It Is Well If The Good Man Himself Does Not Feel His Devotions A Little Clouded, Those Foggy Sensuous Steams Mingling With And Polluting The Pure Altar Surface.

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