Jasmine, the name of which signifies fragrance, is the emblem of delicacy and elegance. It is reared with difficulty in New England, but at the South, puts forth all its graces.
Society during the last hundred years has been alternately perplexed and encouraged respecting the two great questions: how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship?
Attention to any subject will in a short time render it attractive, be it ever so disagreeable and tedious at first.
I would be cautious in embracing or rejecting doctrines. Had they been essential to our salvation, they would have been more explicitly declared in the Gospels, where we are so well taught the practice of every good word and work.
All my habits through life have been singularly removed from any condition of reliance on others, and the feeling - right or wrong - that aloneness is my proper position has prevailed since my early childhood, no doubt nourished and strengthened by many and quick-following bereavements.
The great benefactors of individuals and of communities are the enlightened educators: the wise-teaching, mental and moral instructors and exemplars of our times.
To me, the avocation of a teacher has something elevating and exciting. While surrounded by the young, one may always be doing good.
The rose is the flower and handmaiden of love - the lily, her fair associate, is the emblem of beauty and purity.
I have had so much at heart. Defeated, not conquered; disappointed, not discouraged. I have but to be more energetic and more faithful in the difficult and painful vocation to which my life is devoted.
Rules must be established and enforced, and, as numbers are increased in prisons, the necessity for vigilance increases. These rules, let it be understood, may be kindly while firmly enforced. I would never suffer any exhibition of ill-temper or an arbitrary exercise of authority.
Why not, when it can be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue some of America's miserable children from vice and guilt?
There is, in our nature, a disposition to indulgence, a secret desire to escape from labor, which, unless hourly combated, will overcome and destroy the best faculties of our minds and paralyze our most useful powers.
We are not sent into this world mainly to enjoy the loveliness therein, nor to sit us down in passive ease; no, we were sent here for action. The soul that seeks to do the will of God with a pure heart, fervently, does not yield to the lethargy of ease.
As you have learnt something of time, value and make a proper use of it. Once past, it knows no return; how necessary, then, that you spend it in improving your mind and fitting it for future happiness and usefulness.
What child has ever known the country and has not twined hundreds of fragrant wreaths with the yellow shining cowslip and the more frail and delicate violet - mingling here and there green leaves culled from the odorous eglantine, or, as we more commonly call it, sweetbriar.
Happy are those who dwell apart from the harrowing tumults of public life!
Time passed solely in the pursuit of pleasure leaves no solid enjoyment for the future; but from the hours you spend in reading and studying useful books, you will gather a golden harvest in future years.
'Know,' says a wise writer, the historian of kings, 'Know the men that are to be trusted'; but how is this to be? The possession of knowledge involves both time and opportunities. Neither of these are 'handservants at command.'
I shall be well enough when I get to Kentucky or Alabama. The tonic I need is the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet.
Floral emblems have been often adopted. The houses of York and Lancaster had their roses, the Bourbons of France, the fleur-de-lis, Scotland her thistle, and Ireland her shamrock.
