Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodie… - George Eliot

Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval.

Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life.