I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.

Making a choice is like backing a horse - in a hundred years, they may decide you picked wrongly.

With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

The other thing that happened in 1883 was my reading of Thoreau's Walden.

IN April 1882 my father died; and I was at once whirled out of my land of dreams into a very different sphere.

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.

And where there had been only jeers or taunts at first, crowds came to listen with serious and sympathetic mien.