Hardness of heart is frequently mistaken for firmness of soul; a want of imagination, for reason; and obstinacy, for strength of character; yet how utterly unlike are they all! OSTENTATION. To appear rich, we become poor. MEN AND WOMEN. Men resemble the trees of earth, sturdy and full of strength; but women resemble the flowers, fair and fragile, and cherished the more because they are delicate. OSTENTATION. Ostentation produces more sacrifices than generosity. CONVERSATION. The conversation of some persons resembles occasional gleams of sunshine, piercing an opaque cloud; the light is only sufficient to make the general darkness visible. OPINION. All desire, but few are willing to pay the price of, the good opinion of the world. FEAR. He who fears not, is to be feared. MIDDLE AGE. Middle age is an isthmus between youth and death. MORAL COURAGE. Those only can explore the profoundest depths of suffering who have moral courage sufficient to resist it; as that physical force which augments the violence of fever, enables the patient to survive it. The intenseness of maladies, mental and bodily, is proportioned to the robustness of those condemned to sustain them; and the weak escape, or only slightly experience, the ills which the strong surmount or sink beneath. THOUGHT. “Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur,” was the observation of a reflecting mind: all that touches the heart, gives rise to thoughts more elevated than those that originate only in the head. CELEBRITY AND NOTORIETY. Celebrity and notoriety are frequently mistaken for each other, yet nothing can be more distinct: a great man becomes celebrated; a bad one, notorious. MEMORIES. Some memories are powerfully retentive of injuries, but totally oblivious of benefits. TRIALS. Great trials demand, and are generally met by courage; for we summon all our energies to support them. But it is the every-day minor cares of life that weary the temper and irritate the health; because singly, and in detail, they do not appear sufficiently important to induce us to rally our force to encounter them. As the sailor, who, having ploughed the ocean in its fiercest moods, returns to perish in the stream that wantons before his cottage home, so many a mind that has withstood the most severe trials, has been broken down by a succession of ignoble vexations. COURAGE. Courage is often but the effect of despair, for we cease to fear when we have ceased to hope. BEAUTY.