Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?

Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination.

Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot.

When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence.

If you chance to live in a town where the authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the …

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

Or light or dark, or short or tall, She sets a springe to snare them all: All's one to her—above her fan She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.

Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise And shows you laughing lips and rougish eyes. But when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, 'Tis ten to one you find the girl in tears.

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— In Twilight-land—in No-man’s land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one, a-gape, Shuddering in the gloaming light.

There's a special Providence that watches over idiots, drunken men, and boys.

It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.

We visit […] a neighboring graveyard. I am by this time in a condition of mind to become a willing inmate of the place.

My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.

That was indeed to live— At one bold swoop to wrest From darkling death the best That Death to Life can give!

We weep when we are born, not when we die!

The ability to secure your own way and yet impress others with the idea that they are having their own way is rare among men; in women it is as common as eyebrows.

In her eyes a thought Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn— A mystical forewarning!