Ridicule is the re-action of enthusiasm. Sentiment was considered confined to schools ; and, so far from affecting too much feeling, people were begi… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Scotch are too cautious to be witty — they take thought beforehand of their answers ; they are not people of impulse, and wit is an impulse. "It springs spontaneous if it spring." But then they have humour, rich, racy, sly humour, full of national character, and nearly allied to pathos.

We all know that there is evil in the world — we read of it — we hear of it — but we never think of its entering our own charmed circle. Look round our circle of acquaintance; how it would startle us to be asked to name one whom we thought capable of crime; how much more so to find that crime had been committed by one near and dear to our inmost heart. What a moral revulsion would such a discovery produce — how weak we should find ourselves under such a trial — how soon we should begin to disconnect the offender and the offence ; then, for the first time, we should begin to understand the full force of temptation, and to allow for its fearful strength ; and should we not begin to excuse what had never before seemed capable of palliation?

Out upon the folly which, in estimating human misery, allows aught to bear comparison with the agony of the poor ! I use the word poor relatively; I call not those poor to whom honesty brings self-respect, whose habits and whose means have gone together, and whose industry is its own support. But those are the poor whose exertion supplies not their wants—to whom cold, hunger, and weariness, are common feelings ; who have known better days—to whom the past furnishes contrast, and the future fear.