A Mistress Never Is Nor Can Be

The Great Object Of Life Is Sensation - To Feel That We Exist - Even Though In Pain - It Is This "craving Void" Which Drives Us To Gaming - To Battle - To Travel - To Intemperate But Keenly Felt Pursuits Of Every Description Whose Principal Attraction Is The Agitation Inseparable From Their Accomplishment.

I Stood In Venice, On The Bridge Of Sighs; A Palace And A Prison On Each Hand; I Saw From Out The Wave Of Her Structure's Rise As From The Stroke Of The Enchanter's Wand: A Thousand Years Their Cloudy Wings Expand Around Me, And A Dying Glory Smiles O'er The Far Times, When Many A Subject Land Look'd To The Winged Lion's Marble Pines, Where Venice Sate In State, Throned On Her Hundred Isles.

The Sight Of Blood To Crowds Begets The Thirst Of More, As The First Wine-cup Leads To The Long Revel.

I Am As Comfortless As A Pilgrim With Peas In His Shoes - And As Cold As Charity, Chastity Or Any Other Virtue.

Friendship May, And Often Does, Grow Into Love, But Love Never Subsides Into Friendship.