Perfect love, we are told, casteth out fear.

If I say, as I know I do, a thousand wild and inaccurate things, and employ exaggerated expressions about persons or events in writing to you or to my mother, it is not, I believe, that I want power to systematise my ideas or to measure my expressions, but because I have no objection to letting you see my mind in dishabille.

I have a court dress for days of ceremony and people of ceremony, nevertheless.

But I would not willingly be frightened into wearing it with you; and I hope you do not wish me to do so.
Ever yours, T.B.M.
To hoax a newspaper has, time out of mind, been the special ambition of undergraduate wit.

In the course of 1821 Macaulay sent to the Morning Post a burlesque copy of verses, entitled "Tears of Sensibility." The editor fell an easy victim, but unfortunately did not fall alone.
No pearl of ocean is so sweet As that in my Zuleika's eye.
No earthly jewel can compete With tears of sensibility.
Like light phosphoric on the billow, Or hermit ray of evening sky, Like ripplings round a weeping willow Are tears of sensibility.
Like drops of Iris-coloured fountains By which Endymion loved to lie, Like dew-gems on untrodden mountains Are tears of sensibility.
While Zephyr broods o'er moonlight rill The flowerets droop as if to die, And from their chaliced cup distil The tears of sensibility.
The heart obdurate never felt One link of Nature's magic tie If ne'er it knew the bliss to melt In tears of sensibility.
The generous and the gentle heart Is like that balmy Indian tree Which scatters from the wounded part The tears of sensibility.
Then oh! ye Fair, if Pity's ray E'er taught your snowy breasts to sigh, Shed o'er my contemplative lay The tears of sensibility.
November 2, 1821.
My dear Mother,--I possess some of the irritability of a poet, and it has been a good deal awakened by your criticisms.