“The fire no longer burns as of yore on the altar, the passion has died out, and embers have to be blowed up with the bellows.”

Reflecting on the fading intensity of creative energy with age · Letter to Julia C. Dorr, 26 October 1892

• Age
• Creativity
• Passion

“I pore over my Ms every day, struggle, fight, despair and hope over it.”

Describing the intense, daily labour of composition · Letter to Edmund Clarence Stedman, c. 1861

• Creativity
• Struggle
• Writing