A soul is like a bird, and needs a sharp tap on its shell to open it. For a week, the amount of virtue in the old house would have supplied the neighborhood. Placing a confidence is the surest way of attaching a young mind. Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms. A boy means a green hand, a landsman on his first voyage. And never mind if he is antiquated enough to be a grandfather, he is still called a boy; and boy’s work is put upon him.

A man’s beginning his prime at fifty, or there never was much man in him. In youth, as at the opera, everything seems possible. Advancing in age is sought to create a feeling of balance and proportion, quite the opposite of youth, which prevents grotesque and chaotic things from happening. Youth tends to be unpredictable and ambiguous, bodies seem to sometimes fall out of nowhere, the drama, by growing up and moving around hurtles, we hold up our shattered instruments (souls) of torture, to claim the advantage and nobility of superior age.

The special private happiness of a free person comes, I think, from his finding ways that help him be present in what he is doing. When I feel most pressured, most unfree, it is usually because I am not there as me. I do not mean that I am not in what I am doing, necessarily. I mean that I am driving myself, treating myself as an object, a tool, and an instrument. Many talents could be mustered with clear intention of turning one into the most magnificent man, for the greater glory of God and the Church.

At heart, my efforts are an ambitious building program. It is like my architectural embrace, as if I am reaching out my arms to gather my flock. My ambitions are comparatively classical in taste. The happy benevolence of our feelings, when we are young, prompts us to believe that everybody is good, and excites our wonder why everybody is not happy. Youth and discretion are with respect to each other as two parallel lines, which, though infinitely produced, remain still equidistant, and will never coincide. An antiquated man is brought up to speak of superannuated times.

Without rhythm, there would be no poetry; without colours, could there be life? This translation must not be overdone, however, by a simple reversal of the old doctrine of progress is it to be inferred that we are always the losers. However, the analogies that I have drawn are still valid and serve to sketch that other fullness of the World some way rely on it.

No man who has had any real experience of life can have failed to observe how amazingly close, in critical situations, the terrible, the comic and the serious, contrive to tread on each other’s heels. At such times, the last thing we ought properly to think of comes into our heads, or the least consistent event that could possibly be expected to happen does actually occur. I never saw a man, in all my experience, who I should be so sorry to have for an enemy. Is this because I like him, or because I am afraid of him?

The Heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the Earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an installment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great arrived here on, while day stood distinct in the sky.

Friendship is ye best pearl, but by disdain thrown into vinegar, it bursteth rather in pieces, than it will bow to any softness. With only an inconsiderable change, the gladdest objects and existences become the saddest. An honest man is one of the few great works that can be seen for nothing. How finely we argue upon mistake facts!