impotent fancy prompts,
Rebuilds it to his liking.'

In such a case the poetry runs underground. The observer (poor soul,
with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but
to court deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his
nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of
foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And
the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a
squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And
the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find
out where joy resides, and give it voice beyond singing.

*****

He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is the same that
formed us in frailty.

*****

We are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and
castles in the fire to turn into solid habitable mansions on a gravel
soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of
Thought and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we
must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed
world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without
discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to
be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment
in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing,
of which these are but the parts--namely, to live. We fall in love, we
drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep. And
now you are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have
been better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy thinking. To sit
still and contemplate--to remember the faces of women without desire, to
be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and
everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain where and what you
are--is not this to know both wisdom and virtue, and to dwell with
happiness?

*****

Of those who fail, I do not speak--despair should be sacred; but
to those who even modestly succeed, the changes of their life bring
interest: a job found, a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are
wells of pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is
not from these, but from the villa-dweller, that we hear complaints of
the unworthiness of life.

*****

I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct
man at large presents: