The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

It was the old New York way of taking life 'without effusion of blood': the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above coura…

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.