Remarks by Thomas Bailey Aldrich | V2Melody Quotations

“The charm of it all is not easily to be defined. Perhaps if one could name it, the spell were broken.”

Suggesting that some artistic effects depend precisely upon resisting complete explanation · Essay, Wishmakers' Town, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“They bewitch the memory, having once caught it, and insist on saying themselves over and over.”

Capturing the way memorable poetry continues to sound inwardly long after reading · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“A poet's lyrics may be, as most of Browning's are, just so many dramatis personae.”

Treating lyric poems as potentially dramatic voices rather than straightforward autobiography · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“The lyrist may speak in character, like the dramatist.”

Reminding readers that a lyric voice need not be identical with the poet's private self · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“The color of his thought instinctively blends itself with the color of its affinities.”

Describing influence as an organic blending of a writer's mind with congenial ideas and voices · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“The greatest poets have, with rare exceptions, been the most indebted to their predecessors or to their contemporaries.”

Rejecting the idea that artistic greatness requires complete independence from earlier writers · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“A pessimistic poet, like the poisonous ivy, is one of nature's sarcasms.”

A memorable metaphor for Aldrich's conviction that poetry and persistent pessimism sit uneasily together · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“Nearly all true poets have been wholesome and joyous singers.”

Expressing Aldrich's preference for poetry rooted in vitality rather than cultivated despair · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“There is no such thing as “form” alone; it is only the close-grained material that takes the highest finish.”

Arguing that polished form depends upon substance worthy of craftsmanship · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“Oblivion likes especially to get hold of occasional poems.”

A witty observation on how quickly poetry written for particular occasions can be forgotten · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“In most cases the timely ode is somehow apt to fade with the circumstance that inspired it, and becomes the yesterday's editorial of literature.”

Warning that poetry tied too closely to passing events may lose its vitality when those events recede · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“A fine thing incomparably said instantly becomes familiar, and has henceforth a sort of dateless excellence.”

Describing how exceptional writing can escape its historical moment and feel permanently contemporary · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“So many poets have announced their arrival, and not arrived!”

A concise joke about poetic ambition and the uncertainty of literary reputation · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“It has always been an incredulous world in this matter.”

Observing the difficulty poets face in persuading contemporaries that their work will endure · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“I firmly believe that the health of autograph hunters, as a class, is excellent.”

A dry punchline to Aldrich's suspicion of collectors who pleaded illness to obtain authors' signatures · Essay, The Autograph Hunter, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“In this little Comedy of Deceptions there are as many players as men have fancies.”

A witty observation on the ingenuity people display when pursuing their private obsessions · Essay, The Autograph Hunter, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“No author is insensible to the compliment involved in a request for his autograph, assuming the request to come from some sincere lover of books and bookmen.”

Distinguishing genuine literary admiration from collecting driven merely by acquisition · Essay, The Autograph Hunter, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“Here art has broken into smithereens the mirror which she is supposed to hold up to nature.”

Condemning fiction whose artificiality destroys rather than illuminates its connection with life · Essay, Historical Novels, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“One peril he cannot escape—that of misrepresenting human nature.”

Arguing that even invented worlds must remain truthful about human behaviour · Essay, Historical Novels, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“The earlier sorrow has faded out of the hour, leaving a softened solemnity.”

Describing how public grief can evolve into quieter remembrance across generations · Essay, Decoration Day, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“How quickly Nature takes possession of a deserted battlefield, and goes to work repairing the ravages of man!”

Contrasting nature's patient renewal with the destruction left by human warfare · Essay, Decoration Day, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“Even frequent dinners of turbot and whitebait at the sign of The Ship and Turtle will not enable one to write sea poetry.”

A comic reminder that literary authenticity cannot be acquired through superficial acquaintance · Essay, Leigh Hunt and Barry Cornwall, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“A poet need not confine himself to his individual experiences; the world is all before him where to choose.”

Defending imaginative freedom while recognising that some subjects demand genuine understanding · Essay, Leigh Hunt and Barry Cornwall, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

“This morbidness seldom accompanies genuine poetic gifts.”

Rejecting fashionable despair as an automatic sign of poetic seriousness · Essay, On a Certain Affectation, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

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