EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Yes, there's a luck in most things; and in none more than being born at the right time.

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.

Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting.

The poet who does not revere his art, and believe in its sovereignty, is not born to wear the purple.

Faith and joy are the ascensive forces of song.

Men are egotists, and not all tolerant of one man's selfhood; they do not always deem the amities elective.

A critic must accept what is best in a poet, and thus become his best encourager.

Do your heart and head keep pace? When does hoary Love expire, When do frosts put out the fire? Can its embers burn below All that chill December snow?

The imagination never dies.

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.

The critic's first labor is the task of distinguishing between men, as history and their works display them, and the ideals which one and another have conspired to urge upon his acceptance.

A poet must sing for his own people.

Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed, thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the Spring? Whither away?

Genius does not need a special language; it uses newly whatever tongue it finds.

Progress comes by experiment, and this from ennui that leads to voyages, wars, revolutions, and plainly to change in the arts of expression; that cries out to the imagination, and is the nurse of the invention whereof we term necessity the mother.