Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed.

It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture.

Come little children I'll take thee away, into a land of Enchantment Come little children the time's come to play here in my garden of Shadows Follow sweet children I'll show thee the way through all the pain and the Sorrows Weep not poor childlen for life is this way murdering beauty and Passions Hush now dear children it must be this way to weary of life and Deceptions Rest now my children for soon we'll away into the calm and the Quiet Come little children I'll take thee away, into a land of Enchantment Come little children the time's come to play here in my garden of Shadows

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.