That man's best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature's infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should mak...e himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The ecstatic love of a young writer for the old writer he will be some day is ambition in its most laudable form. This love is not... reciprocated by the older man in his larger library, for even if he does recall with regret a naked palate and a rheumless eye, he has nothing but an impatient shrug of contempt for the bungling apprentice of his youth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Next (?) [sic] came the fort on George's Island. These are bungling contrivances: not our fortes, but our foibles. Wolfe sailed by... the strongest fort in North America in the dark, and took it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »