Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Many have genius, but, wanting art, are forever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.

Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.

The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending,--the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time.

There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it.