I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for rew… - William Makepeace Thackeray

The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter’s bell:
A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;
And, when he’s laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that’s anything but gay.

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray.