
(26th July 1823) The Artist’s Studio
The London Literary Gazette, 1823
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
(26th July 1823) The Artist’s Studio
The London Literary Gazette, 1823
The Death of Cynthia Horner (1994)
Context: With a care both conscious and reverential, Cynthia and I built a love which I believe inspired most who came near it. We felt it was our gift to the world. We wanted to show the hesitant the miracle that comes when two people give their hearts unconditionally, honestly, fearlessly, and without reservation or judgement. We wanted to make our union into a message of hope, and I believe we did, even though we knew that hearts opened so freely can be shattered if something should go wrong. As my heart is shattered now.
Book ii, line 270.
The Course of Time (published 1827)
Epistola ad Posteros [Letter to Posterity] in Petrarch : The First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898) edited by James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe, p. 59
“I can see that the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled.”
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (28 September 1845).
True genius without heart is a thing of nought - for not great understanding alone, not intelligence alone, nor both together, make genius. Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius. - Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, entry in Mozart's souvenir album (1787-04-11) from Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon [Harper-Collins, 1966, ISBN 0-060-92692-9], p. 312.
Misattributed
infinity plus interview (2001)
Variant: In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.
Context: The battle between good and evil is a legitimate theme for a Fantasy (or for any work of fiction, for that matter), but in real life that battle is fought chiefly in the individual human heart. Too many contemporary Fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle, so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they're inevitably ugly and they all wear black.
I wanted to stand much of that on its head.
In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.
“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”
The Sun Rising, stanza 1