He who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives knowledge of its most valuable property .-- the strengthening of the mind by exercise.

We learn what really braces and elevates us only in proportion to the effort it costs us.

Nor is it in Books alone, nor in Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume.

He who has made one stern sacrifice of self has acquired more than he will ever glean from the odds and ends of popular philosophy.

And the man the least scholastic may be more robust in the power that is knowledge, and approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, than Bacon himself, if he cling fast to two simple maxims--"Be honest in temptation, and in Adversity believe in God." Such moral, attempted before in Eugene Aram, I have enforced more directly here; and out of such convictions I have created hero and heroine, placing them in their primitive and natural characters, with aid more from life than books,--from courage the one, from affection the other--amidst the feeble Hermaphrodites of our sickly civilisation;--examples of resolute Manhood and tender Womanhood.
The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this day.