Helen Hunt Jackson

“By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.”

“Gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,--it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,--feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: "At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is joy!”

“Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come?”

“There had been no crises of incident, or marked movements of experience such as in Felipe's imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made, on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,--not of single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look at; but myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. Such cables do not break.”

“We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,--"blind as a bat," for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether, every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.”

“Stain my eyes as I may, on all sides all is black.”

“Will not the Senorita trust me?"Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. "Yes," she said. "I will trust you. You are Alessandro, are you not?""Yes, Senorita," he answered, greatly surprised, "I am Alessandro.”

“The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament. . . . Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket.”

“The goldenrod is yellow,The corn is turning brown...The trees in apple orchardsWith fruit are bending down.”

“Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what's in a name? ”

“The woman who creates and sustains a home, and under whose hands children grow up to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator second only to God.”