If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. - Charles Dickens

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

[S]he stood for some moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.