Choice is more often determined by accident than by reason: I walked abroad one morning with a curious lady, and, by her inquiries and observations, was incited to write the natural history of the country in which I reside.

I acquainted myself with the black inhabitants of metallick caverns, and, in defiance of damps and floods, wandered through the gloomy labyrinths, and gathered fossils from every fissure, At last I began to write, and as I finished any section of my book, read it to such of my friends, as were most skilful in the matter which it treated.

I resolved to read no more, but to take my own way and write on, for by consultation I only perplexed my thoughts and retarded my work.

When I began to write, I insured the house; and suffered the utmost solicitude when I entrusted my book to the carrier, though I had secured it against mischances by lodging two transcripts in different places.

He often expressed his commiseration of Dryden's poverty, and his indignation at the age which suffered him to write for bread; he repeated with rapture the first lines of All for Love, but wondered at the corruption of taste which could bear any thing so unnatural as rhyming tragedies.

He then puts on a very serious air; he advises the pupil to read none but the best authors; and when he finds one congenial to his own mind, to study his beauties, but avoid his faults; and, when he sits down to write, to consider how his favourite author would think at the present time on the present occasion.

How I proceed in the pursuit of happiness, you shall hear when I find myself disposed to write.

He that writes the history of his own times, if he adheres steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure.

Every author does not write for every reader; many questions are such as the illiterate part of mankind can have neither interest nor pleasure in discussing, and which, therefore, it would be an useless endeavour to level with common minds, by tiresome circumlocutions or laborious explanations; and many subjects of general use may be treated in a different manner, as the book is intended for the learned or the ignorant.

It is less difficult to write a volume of lines swelled with epithets, brightened by figures, and stiffened by transpositions, than to produce a few couplets graced only by naked elegance and simple purity, which require so much care and skill, that I doubt whether any of our authors have yet been able, for twenty lines together, nicely to observe the true definition of easy poetry.

"None of de darkies on dat place could read an' write.

"Couldn' none of us read or write, an' us wa'nt neber learned 'til afte' us was set free.

"Dey had a nigger woman to teach all de house darkies how to read an' write an' I larned how to sign my name an' got as fur as b-a-k-e-r in de Blue Back Speller.

Of these, Clement alone seemed to me respectable, and even he to write only what I could myself have written, with Paul and Peter to serve as a model.

To devote good talents to write history or investigate nature, was simple waste: for at the Lord's coming, history and science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours.

You make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons; and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books: (dictionaries and grammars:)

"There is opportunity for service for people of all tastesthose who prefer teaching how to read and write, for sewing, for care of the health, care of the baby, avoiding sickness, nursing the sick ... but in every case devotion, enthusiasm, and a sympathetic Christian spirit are needed.

It is not about that I wish to write, but about the remarkable way India is repressing the movement.

The following is written by a Hindu student: "Before entering into the subject, I should like to write a few words about myself.

The carriage went on very well with them; and it was not till six months afterwards that we found out that the tankard had been bought at a sale!" He told me, "when I wanted to write any thing particularly well,to do better than ordinary,I used to order a post-chaise and go to Longtown; it is the first stage from Carlisle towards the north; there is a comfortable, quiet inn there.

I first became an ardent lover of Mr. Barrie through "Sentimental Tommy," and I simply had to write and tell him how hugely I had enjoyed it.

[Footnote 1: "Wordsworth says he could write like Shakespeare if he had the mind.

I said I would write and ask Mrs. Stirling to give her lessons, but feared she could not as she was ill.

Thus, on the 1st of May 1834, she writes to Sir John: "Both yourself and my dear niece urged me to write often, and to write always twice; but, alas!

Thus, on the 1st of May 1834, she writes to Sir John: "Both yourself and my dear niece urged me to write often, and to write always twice; but, alas!