The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady lambent light, are luminous, but not sparkling.

Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and silence.

Ne speaketh not; and yet there lies a conversation in his eyes.

The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.

White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest . . . White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky.

I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.