till a death occurred elsewhere, and then to hang that same garland over
the other house, it would have, methinks, a strong effect.

No fountain so small but that Heaven may be imaged in its bosom.

Fame! Some very humble persons in a town may be said to possess it,--as,
the penny-post, the town-crier, the constable,--and they are known to
everybody; while many richer, more intellectual, worthier persons are
unknown by the majority of their fellow-citizens. Something analogous in
the world at large.

The ideas of people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of
the houses. All their interests extend over the earth's surface in a
layer of that thickness. The meeting-house steeple reaches out of their
sphere.

Nobody will use other people's experience, nor has any of his own till it
is too late to use it.

Two lovers to plan the building of a pleasure-house on a certain spot of
ground, but various seeming accidents prevent it. Once they find a
group of miserable children there; once it is the scene where crime is
plotted; at last the dead body of one of the lovers or of a dear friend
is found there; and, instead of a pleasure-house, they build a marble
tomb. The moral,--that there is no place on earth fit for the site of a
pleasure-house, because there is no spot that may not have been saddened
by human grief, stained by crime, or hallowed by death. It might be
three friends who plan it, instead of two lovers; and the dearest one
dies.