MR. BLAKE,--I received your letter just as I was rushing to Fire Island beach to recover what remained of Margaret Fuller, and rea...d it on the way. That event and its train, as much as anything, have prevented my answering it before. It is wisest to speak when you are spoken to. I will now endeavor to reply, at the risk of having nothing to say. I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence which we all allow them, are far less real than the creations of my imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant,--all that we commonly call life and death,--and affect me less than my dreams. This petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream or ocean on which we securely float,--what makes the difference between them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it intercepts the light,--an actual button,--and yet all the life that it is connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is natural, now, to think of there being connected with a sign (name, combination of words, letter) besides that to which the s...ign refers, which may be called the reference of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained. In our example, accordingly, [an example in which lines a, b, and c all intersect at a single point] the reference of the expressions 'the point of intersection of a and b' and 'the point of intersection of b and c' would be the same, but not their senses. The reference of 'evening star' would be the same as that of 'morning star,' but not the sense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Could it not be that just at the moment masculinity has brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction or ecological suicide, wome...n are beginning to rise in response to the Mother's call to save her planet and create instead the next stage of evolution? Can our revolution mean anything else than the reversion of social and economic control to Her representatives among Womankind, and the resumption of Her worship on the face of the Earth? Do we dare demand less?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Your letter is come; it came indeed twelve lines ago, but I could not stop to acknowledge it before, & I am glad it did not...r />arrive till I had completed my first sentence, because the sentence had been made since yesterday, & I think forms a very good beginning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The welcome house of him my dearest guest. Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,... Till natures sad decree shall call thee hence; Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, I here, thou there, yet both but one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This letter will be delivered to you by my child,--the child of my adoption,--my affection! Unblest with one natural friend, she m...erits a thousand. I send her to you innocent as an angel, and artless as purity itself; and I send you with her the heart of your friend, the only hope he has on earth, the subject of his tenderest thoughts, and the object of his latest cares.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I really cannot know whether I am or am not the Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing to put up with the mistak...e, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on ...your toes and begs your pardon--the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This place is the Devil, or at least his principal residence, they call it the University, but any other appellation would have su...ited it much better, for study is the last pursuit of the society; the Master eats, drinks, and sleeps, the Fellows drink, dispute and pun, the employments of the undergraduates you will probably conjecture without my description.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One seems to believe almost all that they believe; and when they stop short and call it a Religion, and you pass on, and call it o...nly a reminiscence of one, should you not part with the kiss of peace?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »