Precocious wisdom is almost as much to be deprecated for youth as the premature maladies of age. Neither should arrive before the proper season, as their presence indicates constitutional debility. SCEPTICS. Sceptics, like dolphins, change when dying. SCANDAL. Scandal is the offspring of envy and malice—nursed by society, and cultivated by disappointment. THE SELFISH MAN. The selfish man may be compared to those antediluvian forests in the wilds of America which are nourished by their own dead leaves; in like manner does he feed on those feelings which ought to be devoted to the promotion of the general good. FEMALE EDUCATION. The whole system of female education tends more to instruct women to allure, than to repel; yet how infinitely more essential is the latter art! As rationally might the military disciplinarian limit his tuition to the mode of assault, leaving his soldiery in entire ignorance of the tactics of defence. SUPERSTITION. Superstition is but the fear of belief: religion is the confidence. SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. In society we learn to know others, but in solitude we acquire a knowledge of self. HAPPINESS. We are so little formed for happiness, that, if the present offers nothing to mar it, we look back to the past, or forward to the future, for some subject of chagrin. AUTHORS. An author should be judged of by his works, rather than by his conversation; for the latter takes its colour from those with whom he converses; whereas his writings, being the fruit of solitude, bear the tint only of his own mind. AMBITIOUS PEOPLE. There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world. ICONOCLAST. Darus was a matter-of-fact man,—a moral iconoclast, who waged war against every image the fancy presented. PATIENCE. Patience is a plant of slow growth, but it bears precious fruit, and is the only palliation in affliction. ENVY. It is easier to pardon the faults than the virtues of our friends; because the first excite in us a self-complacency always agreeable; and the second, a sense of humiliation, which makes us dislike the inflictor. VICE AND VIRTUE. Vice is sometimes more courageous than virtue, because it has less to lose. FORGIVENESS OF ENEMIES. We more frequently pardon injuries from forgetfulness of them than from generosity; and many enemies are reconciled more through weakness of memory than goodness of heart. FAITH.