something proud in the heart.

*****

To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and
dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of their
pleasure then comes to an end; 'the malady of not marking' overtakes
them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the
chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. NON RAGIONIAM of
these. But to all the step is dangerous; it involves coming of age; it
is even a kind of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice of
others; they chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to
their own tune the books of childhood. In the future we are to approach
the silent, inexpressive type alone, like pioneers; and the choice of
what we are to read is in our own hands thenceforward.

*****

It remains to be seen whether you can prove yourselves as generous as
you have been wise and patient.

*****

'If folk dinna ken what ye're doing, Davie, they're terrible taken up
with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what
I do for pease porridge.'

*****

And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our
own composure might seem little less surprising.

*****

For charity begins blindfold; and only through a series of
misapprehensions rises at length into a settled principle of love and
patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men.

*****

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more
charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I fancy it must
arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and
the not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter
himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself
to a luxury, he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what
should more directly lead to charitable thoughts? Thus the poor man,
camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he
puts in his belly has been wrenched out of the fingers of the hungry.

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the
fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters
are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly
bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds
himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of
Providence, and compares himself involuntarily w