Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books,... unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrou...nds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »