American author, editor, and temperance crusader (1809-1885)
Always in pursuit of shadows! We lose to-day's substantial good for shadowy phantoms that keep our eyes ever in advance, and our feet ever hurrying forward. No pause--no ease--no full enjoyment of now. O, deluded heart!--ever bartering away substance for shadow!
T. S. ARTHUR
"After a Shadow", After a Shadow and Other Stories
A husband and wife should resolve never to wrangle with each other; never to bandy words or indulge in the least ill-humour. Never! I say; NEVER. Wrangling, even in jest, and putting on an air of ill-humour merely to tease, becomes earnest by practice.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
Let a young maiden, who would preserve her beauty, preserve the purity of soul, those sweet qualities of the mind, those virtues, in short, by which she first drew her lover to her feet.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
When custom has made familiar the charms that are most attractive, when youthful freshness has died away, and with the brightness of domestic life more and more shadows have mingled, then ... and not till then, can the wife say of the husband, "He is worthy of love;" then, first, the husband say of the wife, "She blooms in imperishable beauty."
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
It is the easiest thing in the world to go to astray, but always difficult to return.
T. S. ARTHUR
"In the Way of Temptation", After a Shadow and Other Stories
There is good in all. Yes! we all believe it: not a man in the depth of his vanity but will yield assent. But do you not all, in practice, daily, hourly deny it? A beggar passes you in the street: dirty, ragged, importunate. "Ah! he has a bad look," and your pocket is safe. He starves--and he steals. "I thought he was bad." You educated him in the State Prison. He does not improve even in this excellent school. "He is," says the gaoler, "thoroughly bad." He continues his course of crime. All that is bad in him having by this time been made apparent to himself, his friends, and the world, he has only to confirm the decision, and at length we hear when he has reached his last step. "Ah! no wonder--there was never any good in him. Hang him!"
T. S. ARTHUR
"Good In All", Friends and Neighbors
Even the heart in time may grow cold.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
Days will come when the magic of the senses shall fade. And when this enchantment has fled, then it first becomes evident whether we are truly worthy of love.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
It will not do, my friend, to grant an easy indulgence to natural appetite and desire, for they ever seek to be our masters.
T. S. ARTHUR
"A Mystery Explained", After a Shadow and Other Stories
Custom is, nevertheless, the greatest enchantress, and in a home one of the most benevolent of fairies. A wife was young, and becomes old; it is custom which hinders the husband from perceiving the change.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms