The footsteps of fortune are slippery.

Tomorrow; never yet was born
In earth's dull atmosphere a thing so fair
Never tripped, with footsteps light as air,
So glad a vision over the hills of morn. [ Julia C. R. Dorr ]

Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the world,
When pleasure treads the paths which reason shuns. [ Young ]

Sure as night follows day,
Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the world,
When pleasure treads the path which reason shuns. [ Young ]

Pleasure has no logic; it never treads in its own footsteps. [ Alexander Smith ]

Let our lives be pure as snow-fields, where our footsteps leave a mark, but not a stain. [ Madame Swetchine ]

Clear-sighted reason, wisdom's judgment leads; and sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads. [ Sir J. Denham ]

The poet's heart is an unlighted torch, which gives no help to his footsteps till love has touched it with flame. [ Lowell ]

Rhyme is the elementary art of the poet; but at the same time he must possess that vehement passion for melody that buoys his speech into song, his footsteps into tune, and makes his life move in a melodious rhythm. [ Bentivoglio ]

In the hands of genius, the driest stick becomes an Aaron's rod, and buds and blossoms out in poetry. Is he a Burns? the sight of a mountain daisy unseals the fountains of his nature, and he embalms the bonny gem in the beauty of his spirit. Is he a Wordsworth? at his touch all nature is instinct with feeling; the spirit of beauty springs up in the footsteps of his going, and the darkest, nakedest grave becomes a sunlit bank empurpled with blossoms of life. [ H. N. Hudson ]

Mother! How many delightful associations cluster around that word! The innocent smiles of infancy, the gambols of boyhood, and the happiest hours of riper years! When my heart aches and my limbs are weary travelling the thorny path of life, I sit down on some mossy stone, and closing my eyes on real scenes, send my spirit back to the days of early life; I feel afresh my infant joys and sorrows, till my spirit recovers its tone, and is willing to pursue its journey. But in all these reminiscences my mother rises; if I seat myself upon my cushion, it is at her side; if I sing, it is to her ear; if I walk the walls or the meadows, my little hand is in my mother's, and my little feet keep company with hers; when my heart bounds with its best joy, it is because at the performance of some task, or the recitation of some verses, I receive a present from her hand. There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps. [ Bishop Thomson ]