To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself.
Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. You can only mar it. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children and for all who come after you.
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money. Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.