Father, I scarcely dare to pray, So clear I see, now it is done, That I have wasted half my day, And left my work but just begun. - Helen Hunt Jackson

Then, gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,—it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,—feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: "At last! At last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is Joy!"

There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. […] Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second; and so on till death.

On the king’s gate the moss grew gray;
The king came not. They called him dead;
And made his eldest son one day
Slave in his father’s stead.