g dolefully, or at least serving a steam-beast with oil and
fire, but in the land of the Georgics there is the poetry of agriculture
still.

* * *

The fatal desire of fame, which is to art the corroding element, as the
desire of the senses is to love--bearing with it the seeds of satiety
and mortality--had entered into him without his knowing what it was that
ailed him.

* * *

Genius lives in isolation, and suffers from it. But perhaps it creates
it. The breath of its lips is like ether; purer than the air around it,
it changes the air for others into ice.

* * *

Conscience and genius--the instinct of the heart, and the desire of the
mind--the voice that warns and the voice that ordains: when these are in
conflict, it is bitter for life in which they are at war; most bitter of
all when that life is in its opening youth, and sure of everything, and
yet sure of nothing.

* * *

Between them there was that bottomless chasm of mental difference,
across which mutual affection can throw a rope-chain of habit and
forbearance for the summer days, but which no power on earth can ever
bridge over with that iron of sympathy which stands throughout all
storms.

* * *

When the heart is fullest of pain, and the mouth purest with truth,
there is a cruel destiny in things, which often makes the words worst
chosen and surest to defeat the end they seek.

* * *

There is a chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched
aright. When the artist finds the key-note which that chord will answer
to--in the dullest as in the highest--then he is great.

* * *

Life without a central purpose around which it can revolve, is like a
star that has fallen out of its orbit. With a great affection or a great
aim gone, the practical life may go on loosely, indifferently,
mechanically, but it takes no grip on outer things, it has no vital
interest, it gravitates to nothing.

* * *

Fame has only the span of a day, they say. But to live in the hearts of
the people--that is worth something.

* * *

Keep young. Keep innocent. Innocence does not come back: and repentance
is a poor thing beside it.

* * *

The chimes of the monastery were ringing out for the first mass; deep
bells of sweet tone, that came down the river like a b