Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love – that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the… Continue reading George Eliot
You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the… Continue reading Charles Dickens
Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Lippincott’s Monthly, 1890)
I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weep;Of what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hours,Blown buds of barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep. — Algernon Charles Swinburne, from “The Garden of Proserpine,” The Garden of Persophone. (Simon King; Limited e.… Continue reading Algernon Charles Swinburne
Beauty is a form of Genius–is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It… Continue reading Oscar Wilde
The loveliest things in life are but shadows; they come and go, and change and fade away… – Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit. (Penguin Classics; Reissue edition August 1, 2000) Originally published 1844.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so feltIn solitude, where we are least alone. — Lord Byron, from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Night and Tempest.” published between 1812 and 1818.
Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. ― Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. (Mondial October 19, 2005) Originally published 1886.
Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, […],… Continue reading Charles Dickens
But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to… Continue reading Oscar Wilde
The Vale of Soul-Making 