“Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination- her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. ”

“Superstition was with me at that moment, but it was not yet her hour for complete victory.”

“The truest love that ever heartFelt at its kindled core,Did through each vein, in quickened start,The tide of being pour.Her coming was my hope each day,Her parting was my pain;The chance that did her steps delayWas ice in every vein.I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,As I loved, loved to be;And to this object did I pressAs blind as eagerly.But wide as pathless was the spaceThat lay our lives between,And dangerous as the foamy raceOf ocean-surges green.And haunted as a robber-pathThrough wilderness or wood;For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,Between our spirits stood.I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;I omens did defy:Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,I passed impetuous by.On sped my rainbow, fast as light;I flew as in a dream;For glorious rose upon my sightThat child of Shower and Gleam.Still bright on clouds of suffering dimShines that soft, solemn joy;Nor care I now, how dense and grimDisasters gather nigh.I care not in this moment sweet,Though all I have rushed o'erShould come on pinion, strong and fleet,Proclaiming vengeance sore:Though haughty Hate should strike me down,Right, bar approach to me,And grinding Might, with furious frown,Swear endless enmity.My love has placed her little handWith noble faith in mine,And vowed that wedlock's sacred bandOur nature shall entwine.My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,With me to live--to die;I have at last my nameless bliss.As I love--loved am I!”

“An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with a rms akimbo. I saw her in her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy, cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she smoked and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a cry of the suffering souls about her 'pierced her ears too keenly--my jolly dame seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak, wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was strong, lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.”

“Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star.”

“Once I saw Graham - wholly unconscious of her proximity - push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or two. A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face, to which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot.”

“Her coming was my hope each day,Her parting was my pain;The chance that did her steps delayWas ice in every vein.”