Books Are A Refuge, A Sort Of

It Is Always Hazardous To Express What One Has To Say Indirectly And Allusively.

One Of The Most Beautiful Passages Of Rousseau Is That In The Sixth Book Of Confessions, Where He Describes The Awakening In Him Of The Literary Sense. Of Such Wisdom, The Poetic Passion, The Desire Of Beauty, The Love Of Art For Its Own Sake, Has Most.

A Book, Like A Person, Has Its Fortunes With One; Is Lucky Or Unlucky In The Precise Moment Of Its Falling In Our Way, And Often By Some Happy Accident Counts With Us For Something More Than Its Independent Value.

Such Discussions Help Us Very Little To Enjoy What Has Been Well Done In Art Or Poetry, To Discriminate Between What Is More And What Is Less Excellent In Them, Or To Use Words Like Beauty, Excellence, Art, Poetry, With A More Precise Meaning Than They Would Otherwise Have.

A Sudden Light Transfigures A Trivial Thing, A Weather-vane, A Windmill, A Winnowing Flail, The Dust In The Barn Door; A Moment - And The Thing Has Vanished, Because It Was Pure Effect; But It Leaves A Relish Behind It, A Longing That The Accident May Happen Again.