These pages reproduce me very imperfectly, and there are many things in me of which I find no trace in them. I suppose it is becau...se, in the first place, sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy; and, in the next, because I depend so much upon surrounding circumstances. When there is no call upon me, and nothing to put me to the test, I fall back into melancholy; and so the practical man, the cheerful man, the literary man, does not appear in these pages. The portrait is lacking in proportion and breadth; it is one-sided, and wants a center; it has, as it were, been painted from too near.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty. And least of all can you con...demn an artist pursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. In that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking for the experience of imagined adventures, there are no policemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread of opinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nay to his temptations if not his conscience?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The mountain stood there to be pointed at. Pasture ran up the side a little way,... And then there was a wall of trees with trunks; After that only tops of trees, and cliffs Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Much that is natural, to the will must yield. Men manufacture both machine and soul,... And use what they imperfectly control To dare a future from the taken routes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with respect. Whether in the synagogue, the... mosque, the pagoda, or the wigwam, there is a hideous aspect which we execrate and a sublime aspect which we venerate. So great a subject for spiritual contemplation, such measureless dreaming--the echo of God on the human wall!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and f...or a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The motive of the drama of human life is the necessity, laid upon every man who comes into the world, of discovering the mean betw...een self-assertion and self-restraint suited to his character and his circumstances. And the eternally tragic aspect of the drama lies in this: that the problem set before us is one the elements of which can be but imperfectly known, and of which even an approximately right solution rarely presents itself, until that stern critic, aged experience, has been furnished with ample justification for venting his sarcastic humor upon the irreparable blunders we have already made.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will..., it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are other, savager and more primeval aspects of nature than our poets have sung. It is only white man's poetry. Homer and Os...sian even can never revive in London or Boston. And yet, behold how these cities are refreshed by the mere tradition, or the imperfectly transmitted fragrance and flavor of these wild fruits. If we could listen but for an instant to the chant of the Indian muse, we should understand why he will not exchange his savageness for civilization. Nations are not whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong temptations; but the Indian does well to continue Indian.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »