Essayists, Like Poets, Are Born And Not

It Is The Artist's Function Not To Copy But To Synthesise: To Eliminate From That Gross Confusion Of Actuality Which Is His Raw Material Whatever Is Accidental, Idle, Irrelevant, And Select For Perpetuation That Only Which Is Appropriate And Immortal.

Life - Life - Life! 'tis The Sole Great Thing This Side Of Death, Heart On Heart In The Wonder Of Spring!

Men There Have Been Who Have Done The Essayist's Part So Well As To Have Earned An Immortality In The Doing; But We Have Had Not Many Of Them, And They Make But A Poor Figure On Our Shelves. It Is A Pity That Things Should Be Thus With Us, For A Good Essayist Is The Pleasantest Companion Imaginable.

Shakespeare Often Writes So Ill That You Hesitate To Believe He Could Ever Write Supremely Well; Or, If This Way Of Putting It Seem Indecorous And Abominable, He Very Often Writes So Well That You Are Loth To Believe He Could Ever Have Written Thus Extremely Ill.

Now, To Read Poetry At All Is To Have An Ideal Anthology Of One's Own, And In That Possession To Be Incapable Of Content With The Anthologies Of All The World Besides.