Criticism, As It Was First Instituted By

That Kind Of Life Is Most Happy Which Affords Us Most Opportunities Of Gaining Our Own Esteem.

Being Married To Those Sleepy-souled Women Is Just Like Playing At Cards For Nothing: No Passion Is Excited And The Time Is Filled Up. I Do Not, However, Envy A Fellow One Of Those Honeysuckle Wives For My Part, As They Are But Creepers At Best And Commonly Destroy The Tree They So Tenderly Cling About.

To Live Without Feeling Or Exciting Sympathy, To Be Fortunate Without Adding To The Felicity Of Others, Or Afflicted Without Tasting The Balm Of Pity, Is A State More Gloomy Than Solitude; It Is Not Retreat, But Exclusion From Mankind. Marriage Has Many Pains, But Celibacy Has No Pleasures.

The Imaginations Excited By The View Of An Unknown And Untravelled Wilderness Are Not Such As Arise In The Artificial Solitude Of Parks And Gardens... The Phantoms Which Haunt A Desert Are Want, And Misery, And Danger; The Evils Of Dereliction Rush Upon The Thoughts; Man Is Made Unwillingly Acquainted With His Own Weakness, And Meditation Shows Him Only How Little He Can Sustain, And How Little He Can Perform.

Deign On The Passing World To Turn Thine Eyes, And Pause Awhile From Letters, To Be Wise.