Character Is Very Much A Matter Of

In Ambition, As In Love, The Successful Can Afford To Be Indulgent Toward Their Rivals. The Prize Our Own, It Is Graceful To Recognize The Merit That Vainly Aspired To It.

The Very Cunning Conceal Their Cunning; The Indifferently Shrewd Boast Of It.

A Particular Disappointment Is Seldom More Than An Excrescence Upon The Trunk Of A General Good--a Shower That Spoils The Pleasure Party, But Refreshes And Enriches The Earth.

Wit Must Be Without Effort. Wit Is Play, Not Work; A Nimbleness Of The Fancy, Not A Laborious Effort Of The Will; A License, A Holiday, A Carnival Of Thought And Feeling, Not A Trifling With Speech, A Constraint Upon Language, A Duress Upon Words.

It Is So Natural For Us To Consider Our Presence As Indispensable In The World, So Long As We Have Much To Do In It, That The Wisdom Of Retiring Wholly From Employments In Advanced Life May Be Questioned. Certainly, He Who Does So Is In Danger Of Finding, Before Long, That He Has Only Given Up The Occupation To Which He Has Been Accustomed, For The New Business Of Calculating The Period Of His Decease.