Conscience will lead a man to repent or atone for crime, but common sense will preclude his committing it by enabling him to judge of the result.

I frequently hear people say, "So and so are very clever," or "very cunning, and are well calculated to make their way in the world." This opinion seems to me to be a severe satire on the world, for as cunning can only appertain to a mean intellect, to which it serves as a poor substitute for sense, it argues ill for the world to suppose it can be taken in by it.
I never knew a sensible, or a good person, who was cunning; and I have known so many weak and wicked ones who possessed this despicable quality, that I hold it in abhorrence, except in very young children, to whom Providence gives it before they arrive at good sense.
Went a round of the curiosity shops on the Quai d'Orsay, and bought an amber vase of rare beauty, said to have once belonged to the Empress Josephine.

When I see the beautiful objects collected together in these shops, I often think of their probable histories, and of those to whom they once belonged.

Each seems to identify itself with the former owner, and conjures up in my mind a little romance.
A vase of rock crystal, set in precious stones, seen today, could never have belonged to aught but some beauty, for whom it was selected by an adoring lover or husband, ere yet the honeymoon had passed.

A chased gold _etui_, enriched with oriental agates and brilliants, must have appertained to some _grande dame_, on whose table it rested in a richly-decorated _salon_; and could it speak, what piquant disclosures might it not make! The fine old watch, around the dial of which sparkle diamonds, and on the back the motto, executed in the same precious stones, "_Vous me faites oublier les heures_," once adorned the slender waist of some dainty dame,--a nuptial gift.