Progress comes by experiment, and this from ennui that leads to voyages, wars, revolutions, and plainly to change in the arts of expression; that cries out to the imagination, and is the nurse of the invention whereof we term necessity the mother.

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.

The critic's first labor is the task of distinguishing between men, as history and their works display them, and the ideals which one and another have conspired to urge upon his acceptance.

Alas, by what rude fate Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet, Then part forever on their courses fleet.

The poet who does not revere his art, and believe in its sovereignty, is not born to wear the purple.

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.

The imagination never dies.