Men leave their impressions on all around them.

The walls which have felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of their presence.

I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and gone.

I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular, uncompanionable, and severe.

I think it true, and sadly true, that a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually, even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost.