There Was Never A Great

[finishing Schools] Are Nicely Adapted Machines For Experimenting On The Question, "into How Little Space A Human Being Can Be Crushed?" I Have Seen Some Souls So Compressed That They Would Have Fitted Into A Small Thimble, And Found Room To Move . . .

I Am Always Thirsting For Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Music. I Wish I Could Make It. Perhaps There Isn't Any Music On Earth Like What I Picture To Myself.

We All Enter The World Little Plastic Beings, With So Much Natural Force, Perhaps, But For The Rest--blank; And The World Tells Uswhat We Are To Be, And Shapes Us By The Ends It Sets Before Us. To You It Says--work; And To Us It Says--seem! To You It Says--as You Approximate To Man's Highest Ideal Of God, As Your Arm Is Strong And Your Knowledge Great, And The Power To Labour Is With You, So You Shall Gain All That Human Heart Desires. To Us It Says--strength Shall Not Help You, Nor Knowledge, Nor Labour. You Shall Gain What Men Gain, But By Other Means. And So The World Makes Men And Women.

If The Bird Does Like Its Cage, And Does Like Its Sugar And Will Not Leave It, Why Keep The Door So Very Carefully Shut?

It Is The Swimmer Who First Leaps Into The Frozen Stream Who Is Cut Sharpest By The Ice; Those Who Follow Him Find It Broken, And The Last Find It Gone. It Is The Men Or Women Who First Tread Down The Path Which The Bulk Of Humanity Will Ultimately Follow, Who Must Find Themselves At Last In Solitudes Where The Silence Is Deadly.