National enthusiasm is the nursery of genius.
Fashion seldom interferes with nature without diminishing her grace and efficiency.
Poetry is the overflowing of the Soul.
If conversation be an art, like painting, sculpture, and literature, it owes its most power charm to nature; and the least shade of formality or artifice destroys the effect of the best collection of words.
Professed authors who overestimate their vocation are too full of themselves to be agreeable companions. The demands of their egotism are inveterate. They seem to be incapable of that abandon which is the requisite condition of social pleasure; and bent upon winning a tribute of admiration, or some hint which they can turn to the account of pen-craft, there is seldom in their company any of the delightful unconsciousness which harmonizes a circle.
Credulity is perhaps a weakness almost inseparable from eminently truthful characters.
A work of art is said to be perfect in proportion as it does not remind the spectator of the process by which it was created.
To a nice ear, the quality of a voice is singularly affecting. Its depth seems to be allied to feeling; at least, the contralto notes alone give an adequate sense of pathos. They are born near the heart.
As the falcon launched trustingly heavenward is lost to view, the course of the higher poetry often soars beyond the ken of the multitude; and, as the humble birds carol blithely round our dwellings, so the meeker lays of the muse linger tunefully about the heart.
Without the definiteness of sculpture and painting, music is, for that very reason, far more suggestive. Like Milton's Eve, an outline, an impulse, is furnished, and the imagination does the rest.
There is a policy in manner. I have heard one, not inexperienced in the pursuit of fame, give it his earnest support, as being the surest passport to absolute and brilliant success.
Literature is so common a luxury that the age has grown fastidious.
The French have a significant saying, that a woman who buys her complexion will sell it.
Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment.
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