A thrumming of piano-strings beyond the gardens and through the elms. At length the melody steals into my being. I know not when it began to occupy me. By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody, my fancy and imagination are excited to an inconceivable degree. This is no longer the dull earth on which I stood.

All men are children, and of one family.

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

The bad are frequently good enough to let you see how bad they are, but the good as frequently endeavor to get between you and themselves.