The trees reflected in the river;—they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near them. So are we.


The unpardonable sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its dark depths,—not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a cold, philosophical curiosity,—content that it should be wicked in whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?


There are some faces that have no more expression in them than any other part of the body. The hand of one person may express more than the face of another.


An ugly person with tact may make a bad face and figure pass very tolerably, and more than tolerably. Ugliness without tact is horrible. It ought to be lawful to extirpate such wretches.


To represent the influence which dead men have among living affairs. For instance, a dead man controls the disposition of wealth; a dead man sits on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions; dead men's opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe in dead men's religions; we laugh at dead men's jokes; we cry at dead men's pathos; everywhere, and in all matters, dead men tyrannize inexorably over us.