... it is the greatest of all mistakes to begin life with the expectation that it is going to be easy, or with the wish to have it so. - Lucy Larcom

Oh, her heart’s adrift with one
On an endless voyage gone! Night and morning
Hannah’s at the window binding shoes.

O Mariner-soul, Thy quest is but begun, There are new worlds Forever to be won.

What does cause depression of spirits? Heavy head and heavy heart, and no sufficient reason for either, that I know of. I am out of doors every day, and have nothing unusual to trouble me; yet every interval of thought is clouded ; there is no rebound, no rejoicing as it is my nature to rejoice, and as all things teach me to do. We are strange phenomena to ourselves, when we will stop to gaze at ourselves; but that I do not believe in; there are pleasanter subjects, and self is a mere speck on the great horizon of life.