* * * * *

To typify our mature review of our early projects and delusions, by
representing a person as wandering, in manhood, through and among the
various castles in the air that he had reared in his youth, and
describing how they look to him,--their dilapidation, etc. Possibly some
small portion of these structures may have a certain reality, and
suffice him to build a humble dwelling in which to pass his life.

* * * * *

The search of an investigator for the unpardonable sin: he at last finds
it in his own heart and practice.

* * * * *

The trees reflected in the river;--they are unconscious of a spiritual
world so near them. So are we.

* * * * *

The unpardonable sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for
the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its
dark depths,--not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a
cold, philosophical curiosity,--content that it should be wicked in
whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not
this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from the heart?

* * * * *

There are some faces that have no more expression in them than any other
part of the body. The hand of one person may express more than the face
of another.

* * * * *

An ugly person with tact may make a bad face and figure pass very
tolerably, and more than tolerably. Ugliness without tact is horrible.
It ought to be lawful to extirpate such wretches.

* * * * *

To represent the influence which dead men have among living affairs. For
instance, a dead man controls the disposition of wealth; a dead man sits
on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions;
dead men's opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe
in dead men's religions; we laugh at dead men's jokes; we cry at dead
men's pathos; everywhere, and in all matters, dead men tyrannize
inexorably over us.

* * * * *

When the heart is full of care, or the mind much occupied, the summer
and the sunshine and the moonlight are but a gleam and glimmer,--a vague
dream, which does not come within us, but only makes itself imperfectly
perceptible on the outside of us.

* *