“Pens carry further than rifled cannon.”

Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows – the south and east oriels – are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.

The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.

Life lives only in success.

Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.

Alone each heart must cover up its dead; Alone, through bitter toil, achieve its rest.

And far and wide, in a scarlet tide, The poppy’s bonfire spread.

Learn to live, and live to learn, Ignorance like a fire doth burn, Little tasks make large return.

Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of antiquity in or near it.

So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici.

Love’s humility is love’s true pride.

The hollows are heavy and dank With the steam of the Goldenrods.

He teaches best, Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast, And knows their strength or weakness through his own.

Women are not apt to be won by the charms of verse.

The healing of the world is in its nameless saints. Each separate star seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful.

Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,– Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,– Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top.

But who will watch my lilies, When their blossoms open white? By day the sun shall be sentry, And the moon and the stars by night!