Nothing but a speck we seem In the waste of waters round, Floating, floating like a dream, — Outward bound. - Dinah Craik

Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical — by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil — by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him — nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style — such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing — you had much better leave him alone.

The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his hand, wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it — in degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness.

We have not to construct human nature afresh, but to take it as we find it, and make the best of it.