Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

I see the President almost every day. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face with its deep-cut lines, the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments. It is not the violins and the cornets-it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza-nor that of the women's chorus; it is nearer and farther than they.

Do anything, but let it produce joy.

Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.