“If the sentiment must stand, twirl it a little into an apophegm, stick a flower in it, gild it with a costly expression, let it strike the fancy, the ear, or the heart.” Witty practical advice on turning an ordinary sentiment into memorable poetry · Letter to William Mason, 24 March 1758 Poetry Wit Writing
“It is flat, it is prose, whereas that above all ought to sparkle, or at least to shine.” Gray's succinct advice on the importance of giving an elegy a memorable ending · Letter to William Mason, 24 March 1758 Criticism Poetry Style
“A letter from you stands in the place of all these.” Written after saying he lacked company, pleasure and spirits, revealing how much he valued a friend's correspondence · Letter to William Mason, 13 January 1758 Communication Friendship Solitude
“This I have always aim'd at, and never could attain.” A striking admission of artistic dissatisfaction immediately after describing his ideal of lyric concision · Letter to William Mason, 13 January 1758 Humility Skill Writing
“Extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand beauties of lyric poetry.” Summing up Gray's demanding ideal of clarity, brevity and musical expression in lyric verse · Letter to William Mason, 13 January 1758 Music Poetry Style
“If ever two people, who love one another, come to breaking, it is for want of a timely eclaircissement, a full and precise one, without witnesses or mediators.” Urging direct and honest communication before misunderstandings damage affection · Letter to Horace Walpole, November 1747 Communication Friendship Love
“Nature and sorrow, and tenderness, are the true genius of such things; poetical ornaments are foreign to the purpose; for they only show a man is not sorry.” Arguing that genuine elegiac feeling matters more than decorative poetic language · Letter to Horace Walpole, November 1747 Emotion Poetry Sorrow
“Now as the paradisaical pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.” A playful declaration of the pleasures he found in reading contemporary French fiction · Letter to Richard West, 8 April 1742 Books Humour Reading
“Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself, to which almost every one that has written has added something.” Presenting poetic language as a tradition continually enriched by individual writers · Letter to Richard West, 8 April 1742 Language Poetry Tradition
“The language of the age is never the language of poetry.” Expressing his belief that poetry requires a language distinct from ordinary contemporary speech · Letter to Richard West, 8 April 1742 Language Poetry Style
“I shall be but a shrimp of an author.” A characteristically self-deprecating assessment of his remarkably small body of published work · Letter to Horace Walpole, 25 February 1768 Humility Humour Writing
