"She dwells with beauty--beauty that must die, And joy whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu!" Thus I accomplished my second lie: I that, at home, used to be a proverb for blunt truth-telling.

They say that "_facilis descensus Averni_." I do not agree with them.

I have not found it easy.

To me it has seemed a very steep and precipitous road, set with sharp flints that cut the feet, and make the blood flow.
I think the second falsehood was almost harder to utter than the first: but, indeed, they were both very disagreeable.

I cannot think why any one should have thought it necessary to invent the doctrine of a future retribution for sin.
It appears to me that, in this very life of the present, each little delinquency is so heavily paid for--so exorbitantly overpaid, indeed.
Look, for instance, at my own case.