To Prolong Doubt Was To Prolong Hope.

I Only Want An Easy Mind, Sir; Not Crushed By Crowded Obligations.

But I Tell You - And Mark My Words - You Will Come Some Day To A Craggy Pass In The Channel, Where The Whole Of Life's Stream Will Be Broken Up Into Whirl And Tumult, Foam And Noise: Either You Will Be Dashed To Atoms On Crag Points, Or Lifted Up And Borne On By Some Master-wave Into A Calmer Current.

I Am Not Talking To You Now Through The Medium Of Custom, Conventionalities, Nor Even Of Mortal Flesh: It Is My Spirit That Addresses Your Spirit; Just As If Both Had Passed Through The Grave, And We Stood At God's Feet, Equal--as We Are!

Is Not The Real Experience Of Each Individual Very Limited? And, If A Writer Dwells Upon That Solely Or Principally, Is He Not In Danger Of Repeating Himself, And Also Of Becoming An Egotist? Then, Too, Imagination Is A Strong, Restless Faculty, Which Claims To Be Heard And Exercised: Are We To Be Quite Deaf To Her Cry, And Insensate To Her Struggles? When She Shows Us Bright Pictures, Are We Never To Look At Them, And Try To Reproduce Them? And When She Is Eloquent, And Speaks Rapidly And Urgently In Our Ear, Are We Not To Write To Her Dictation?

But This I Know; The Writer Who Possesses The Creative Gift Owns Something Of Which He Is Not Always Master--something That At Times Strangely Wills And Works For Itself. He May Lay Down Rules And Devise Principles, And To Rules And Principles It Will Perhaps For Years Lie In Subjection; And Then, Haply Without Any Warning Of Revolt, There Comes A Time When It Will No Longer Consent.