Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable.

I confess . . . that I am not myself very much concerned with the question of influence, or with those publicists who have impressed their names upon the public by catching the morning tide and rowing very vast in the direction in which the current was flowing; but rather that there should always be a few writers preoccupied in penetrating to the core of the matter, in trying to arrive at the truth and to set it forth, without too much hope, without ambition to alter the immediate course of affairs, and without being downcast or defeated when nothing appears to ensue.

It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin.