Virtue should virtuous seem, nor wear a mask Of levity, as giddy maids put on At carnivals, showing unchaste exterior, Though innocence doth still reside within. INGRATITUDE. So inherent is ingratitude in man, that it is chiefly in affliction that he lifts his soul to his Creator; in joy and prosperity, he is prone to forget _Him_. BALM FOR MISFORTUNES. To sleep by night and dream by day is the balm of misfortune. SOCIETY. Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources; for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home. COURAGE. Many people mistake audacity for courage, yet they are dissimilar. Catiline was audacious, and Cæsar courageous. SUPERSTITION. As darkness encourages the growth of reptiles, so, in an inverse manner, do the creatures of superstition promote the growth of darkness. SELF-EXAMINATION. Let us call back our long departed years, And ask if we employed them as we ought. Will they not tell a most reproachful tale, Of wasted hours, of blessings never prized Till lost, and then ungratefully resigned, With murmurs, and not thanks, that they were lent. SOCIETY. Those who suffer their happiness to depend on the futile pleasures of society, instead of the resources of their own minds, resemble birds, who, with the power of soaring into the pure regions of the sky, descend, and loiter amid the dust of the earth, at the risk of being snared or destroyed by every vagrant urchin. IMAGINATION. The heart is often made answerable for the follies of the imagination. FLOWERS. Some flowers absorb the rays of the sun so strongly, that in the evening they yield slight phosphoric flashes. May we not compare the minds of poets to these flowers, which, imbibing light, emit it again in a different form and aspect? SORROW. Sorrow and time can teach what nought else teaches, More than philosopher or priest e’er preaches. TRUTH AND PHYSIC. Truth and physic, two unpalatable things, never well received, though administered with a good intention. CUNNING AND VANITY. Cunning is a substitute for wisdom, adopted by the weak of intellect, as vanity is for pride. PRECOCIOUS WISDOM.