The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work

I romanced internally about early death till it was too late to die early.

Even if their outward fortunes could be absolutely equalized, there would be, from individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a democracy in every land. The fearful by nature would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by nature a democracy, were all other causes of divergence done away.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

if I believed that the choice lay between a sacrifice of the completest order of biography and that of the inviolability of private epistolary correspondence, I could not hesitate for a moment. I would keep the old and precious privacy,-the inestimable right of every one who has a friend and can write to him, - I would keep our written confidence from being made biographical material, as anxiously as I would keep our spoken conversation from being noted down for the good of society.

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work