The talker has found a hearer but not a listener; and though he may talk his very best for his own sake, you will find that his mental movements are erratic: they have no fixed centre and no definite object. His talk is like the water of a canal whose banks have given way, which rolls aimlessly hither and thither, without fulfilling any useful function, though it is the same water which was so helpful and serviceable, when it was confined within clearly marked limits by the restraining force of its earthy boundaries.
She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph. I don't know what she was, anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink, no looking down, or looking back. I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.
Mr Lorry asks the witness questions: Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!
Love is not a feeling to pass away
Like the balmy breath of a Summer's day.......
Love is not a passion of earthly mould
As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold
Château and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well-thousands of acres of land-a whole province of France-all France itself-lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hairbreadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star.
Love, however, is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination: which has a long memory, and will thrive, for a considerable time, on very slight and sparing food.
We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.
The sum of the whole is this: walk and b« happy! walk and be healthy. The best of all ways to lengthen ourdays, is notas Mr. Thomas Moore has it, " ]To steal a few hours from night, my love;" but with leave, be it spoken, to walk steadily and with a purpose.