“ Yet in these pilgrimages the young scholar learned useful habits of self-denial, saw new phases of human character, and above all enjoyed that close communion with nature which is the need of the poet. Over and over there is a reflection of this life in that fanciful verse, which has caught the color of the morning hours when the hedgerows are wet and the grass dewy, when the wild roses scent the roadside and the lark is at matins—verse full of the joy of life and the hope of youth. ”

“ Porthos and Aramis looked at each other. They were beginning to understand what Athos had in his head.
"But," objected D'Artagnan, leaning over to whisper to Athos, "we shall be killed without a chance of escape."
"We shall be killed a great deal more certainly if we don't go," replied Athos.
"Ah!" ejaculated Porthos, twirling his mustache, "that is a grand bet."
"I take it," said M. De Busigny; "let us fix the stakes."
"That is easily done," replied Athos. "We are four and you are four. The loser shall give the whole eight a dinner." ”

“ From that day the renascent world set forward again; and in the new path France, heir of Athens and of Rome, was long her guide—for art in its most charming form, and for thought, developed in the light.
Upon a medal of Constantine his son presents to him a globe surmounted by a phœnix, symbol of immortality. For once the courtiers were not in the wrong. The sacred bird which springs from her own ashes is a fitting emblem of this old Rome, dead fifteen centuries ago, yet alive to-day through her genius: Siamo Romani. ”

“ When from such laughter as this we turn to the laughter of men of genius, who gaze at the total play of the world's life; and when we listen to this, as with the ages it goes on gathering and swelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and almost annihilated by the chorus of mock and jest, of antic and buffoonery, of tender mirth and indignant satire, of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of desperate misanthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of human imperfection and human folly. ”

“ Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl beat again!—Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging, but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans; which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely care which is the fleeter.
Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with one hope. ”

“ FROM 'RAMEAU'S NEPHEW'
Be the weather fair or foul, it is my custom in any case at five o'clock in the afternoon to stroll in the Palais Royal. I am always to be seen alone and meditative, on the bench D'Argenson. I hold converse with myself on politics or love, on taste or philosophy, and yield up my soul entirely to its own frivolity. It may follow the first idea that presents itself, be the idea wise or foolish. In the Allée de Foi one sees our young rakes following upon the heels of some courtesan who passes on with shameless mien, laughing face, animated glance, and a pug nose ”

“ I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream of mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray figment of my over-tired and excited brain—a more than agreeable figment (what else could she be!) ”

“ We hear laughter of passionate indignation from Juvenal, the indignation of "the ancient and free soul of the dead republics." And there is Rabelais, with his huge buffoonery, and the earnest eyes intent on freedom, which look out at us in the midst of the zany's tumblings and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his refined Castilian air and deep melancholy mirth, at odds with the enthusiasm which is dearest to his soul. And Molière, with his laughter of unerring good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or folly or hypocrisy, and brightly mocking these into modesty. ”

“ Yet in the art of living, in the unselfish devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the graces of affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so excellent and exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard of the most able men of the most brilliant period of English literature—men who felt a personal and unrequitable loss when he passed away, and who spoke of him always with admiring tenderness. ”

“ There are adventures, startling and surprising, there are mysteries of buried gold, there are the machinations of the wicked, there is the heroism of the good, and the gay humor of happy souls. More than these, there is love—that sentiment which glides into a good story as naturally as into a human life; and whether the story be for old or young, this element gives it an ever-welcome charm. Strange fortune and good fortune come to Hans and to Gretel, and to many other deserving characters in the tale, but there is nothing selfish about these heroes and heroines. ”

“ Athos came down, and his friends, who had awaited him anxiously, received him with joy.
"Be quick, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "now that we have got everything but money, it would be stupid to get killed."
But Athos would not hurry himself, and they had to keep pace with him.
By this time Grimaud and his basket were well beyond bullet range, while in the distance the sounds of rapid firing might be heard.
"What are they doing?" asked Porthos; "what are they firing at?"
"At our dead men," replied Athos. ”

“ There is a sort of science of optics and of perspective that enables one to draw a personage, a character, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with a single stroke of the pen. Dramatic cheating of the eye is so complete that often the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the play, desiring to give himself once more the same emotion that he has felt as one of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in the written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the passage where the emotion lies hid. ”

“ There are as many modes of laughter as there are facets of the common soul of humanity, to reflect the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of his pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a group of occupants of the pit of a theatre, sketched during the performance of some broad comedy or farce. What proceeds upon the stage is invisible and undiscoverable, save as we catch its reflection on the faces of the spectators, in the same way that we infer a sunset from the evening flame upon windows that front the west. ”

“ Flowers there are, small and great, in endless variety; but there is no display of flowers, no gorgeous show of blossom in the mass, as when the blazing gorse and heather bloom at home. The dazzling glare of the sun in the torrid zone has perhaps something to do with this want of color effect in tropical nature; for there is always about ten minutes just after sunset when the whole tone of the landscape changes like magic, and a singular beauty steals over the scene. ”

“ Now I am a man of my time, exercised over one theory or another, hardly knowing what he must believe, good or bad, but inclined to believe in good when occasion presents itself. I respect women who respect themselves.... It is not I who created the world; I take it as I find it.... And as to marriage, the day when I shall find a young girl with the four qualities of goodness of heart, sound health, thorough self-respect, and cheerfulness,—the squaring of the conjugal hypothenuse,—then I count for nothing all my long term of waiting ”

“ My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. ”

“ The falling handkerchief starts the bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring, shoots off twenty girls like so many arrows.
It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before we can fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance. This time they are close upon one another. It is hard to say, as they come speeding back from the flagstaff, which will reach the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost,—eager glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. ”

“ Death is a piece of the order of this all, a part of the life of this world; for while the world is the world, some creatures must die and others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this orb of generation and corruption where the First Matter, like a still flowing and ebbing sea, with diverse waves but the same water, keepeth a restless and never tiring current; what is below in the universality of its kind doth not in itself abide.... ”

“ To attempt to ride through these Western forests, with their meshwork of interlocked branches and decaying trunks, is often out of the question, and one has to dismount and drag his horse after him as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. But in an African forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at first at a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior, a novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest bed was carefully swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. ”

“ The girls are to skate their third mile.
How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line! Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile, half bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination pervades them all.
This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel nor Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the silver skates.
Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their runners! How nervously they examine each strap! ”

“ These all felt like laughing themselves to death when they saw me, and when I saw them I set my arms akimbo and felt like laughing myself to death, for fools and clowns take pleasure in one another; seek one another out, attract one another. Had I not found upon my arrival in this world the proverb ready-made, that the money of fools is the inheritance of the clever, the world would have owed it to me. ”

“ Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the monkey will cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few; the trees are poor; and to be honest, though the endless forest-clad mountains have a sublimity of their own, and though there are tropical bits along some of the mountain streams of exquisite beauty, nowhere is there anything in grace and sweetness and strength to compare with a Highland glen. ”