Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it

--then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine - how good how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beatified Strawberry.

Call the world if you please "the vale of soul-making." Then you will find out the use of the world.

...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.

Severn - I - lift me up - I am dying - I shall die easy; don't be frightened - be firm, and thank God it has come.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.