1. Ah, me! the world grows very full of ghosts as we
grow older. We need not seek in dismal churchyards
nor sleep in moated granges, to see their shadowy
faces, and hear the rustling of their garments in the
night. Every house, every room, every creaking
chair has its own particular ghost ...
2. Ghosts! ..... They walk beside us in the busy street,
under the glare of the sun. They sit by us in the
twilight at home. We see their little faces looking
from the windows of the old schoolhouse. We meet
them in the woods and lanes, where we shouted
and played ..... Hark! cannot you hear their low
laughter from behind the blackberry bushes, and their
distant whoops along the grassy glades? Down here,
through the quiet fields, and by the wood, where the
evening shadows are lurking, winds the path where
we used to watch for her at sunset. Look, she is there
now, in the dainty, white frock we knew so well, with
the big bonnet dangling from her little hands, and the
sunny brown hair all tangled .....
Memory is a rare ghost raiser.”
3. "Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their own way, but we, poor mortals in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company."
4. “For the man sound in body and serene in mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.”
5. “It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has pleanty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”
6. “It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don't let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!"
7. "Nothing, so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is ore beautiful than the love that has weathered the torms of life… The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love f the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer."
8. “Time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of Eternity.”
9. “We shall never be content until man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.”
