ss His will. And the old dame,
she said, Weel, sir, I dinna b'lieve tha Almighty would ever spite a
poor old crittur like me, don't 'ee think it? But if we're no to help
oursells i' this world, what for have He gied us the trouble o' tha
thrid to spin? and why no han't He made tha shirts, an' tha sheets, an'
tha hose grow theersells? And ta passon niver answered her that, he only
said she was fractious and blas-_phe_-mous. Now she warn't, she spoke i'
all innocence, and she mint what she said--she mint it. Passons niver
can answer ye plain, right-down, nataral questions like this'n, and
that's why I wunna ga ta tha church.

* * *

Dinna ye meddle, Tam; it's niver no good a threshin' other folk's corn;
ye allays gits the flail agin i' yer own eye somehow.

* * *

The flowers hang in the sunshine, and blow in the breeze, free to the
wasp as to the bee. The bee chooses to make his store of honey, that is
sweet, and fragrant, and life-giving; the wasp chooses to make his from
the same blossoms, but of a matter hard, and bitter, and useless. Shall
we pity the wasp because, of his selfish passions, he selects the
portion that shall be luscious only to his own lips, and spends his
hours only in the thrusting-in of his sting? Is not such pity--wasted
upon the wasp--an insult to the bee who toils so wearily to gather in
for others; and who, because he stings not man, is by man maltreated?
Now it seems to me, if I read them aright, that vicious women, and women
that are of honesty and honour, are much akin to the wasp and to the
bee.

* * *

My dear, a gentleman may forget his appointments, his love vows, and his
political pledges; he may forget the nonsense he talked, the dances he
engaged for, the women that worried him, the electors that bullied him,
the wife that married him, and he may be a gentleman still; but there
are two things he must never forget, for no gentleman ever does--and
they are, to pay a debt that is a debt of honour, and to keep a promise
to a creature that can't force him to keep it.

* * *

A genius? You must mistake. I have always heard that a genius is
something that they beat to death first with sticks and stones, and set
up on a great rock to worship afterwards. Now they make her very happy
whilst she is alive. She cannot possibly be a genius.

* * *

I learned many wondrous things betwixt Epsom