Women are prone to judge their lovers’ hearts But by their own, which little semblance hath With man’s rough nature. Hence they love them for The qualities they give them—not for those They have, which rarely merit to be loved. LOVE. Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrame. GRATITUDE. Gratitude was fancifully said to be the memory of the heart; but, alas! for poor human nature, hearts are more than suspected to have wondrous short memories. MEN AND WOMEN. A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is generally influenced by his head. LIFE. Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep. MATURITY. It is in maturity, when the passions are calmed, and Reason exerts her influence, that the attachments we form possess the most stability. We expect less, and pardon more. The disappointments we have experienced teach us to value what we have attained, even while regretting what we have lost. THE POETRY OF LIFE. The poetry of our lives is, like our religion, kept apart from our every-day thoughts; neither influence us as they ought. We should be wiser and happier, if, instead of secluding them in some secret shrine in our hearts, we suffered their humanising qualities to temper our habitual words and actions. HONOUR AND CHASTITY. Honour is the peculiar and essential virtue of men, and chastity that of women; both are lost, if these qualities are impeached. SOCIETY. Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection; like the Spartans, who punished the discovery of theft, and not the crime. IDEAS. A man with a vast number of ideas, without strong power of reasoning, resembles a general incapable of directing his troops. SELFISH MEN. The selfish man believes that by closing his heart against his fellows, and centering in self every thought and feeling, he escapes much suffering. But his egotistical calculations are invariably defeated; for his contracted sympathies being all directed to one focus, he so aggravates the ills he endures, that he expends on self alone more painful pity than the most enthusiastic philanthropist devotes to mankind. ILLUSIONS. Each illusion that dies gives birth to a posthumous one, which we believe to be less perishable than its predecessor, until we see it similarly fade and expire. HAPPINESS. Happiness, like youth and health, is rarely appreciated until it is past.