“I hate the East so profoundly that I should not return to it if there were no other land in which I could live.”

A blunt private verdict on the posting he had served with outward success · Letter from his years as minister at Constantinople, quoted by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

• Exile
• Place
• Travel

“After that the sword was drawn, it struck me that politics had vanished entirely from the scene — that it was now merely a question of patriotism or disloyalty.”

Why the Civil War ended his Democratic allegiance and made the cause a matter of loyalty · Later account of his change of party after 1861

• Patriotism
• Politics
• War

“There are no such subjects for historical tragedy on earth as are to be found in the Spanish history of that period.”

Explaining his turn to medieval Spain for the matter of tragedy · Letter to Richard Henry Stoddard, 14 November 1852

• Drama
• History
• Tragedy

“I, too, have endeavoured to find some test by which I might determine the exact amount of poetry existing in any given number of words, as a chemist determines the quantity of salt in so many drops of sea-water.”

An admission that the nature of poetry resists any exact measure · Letter to Richard Henry Stoddard, 21 May 1852

• Definition
• Doubt
• Poetry

“We count the myriads of men that are and have been, by millions; we count the poets, as we pick out planets among the stars, singly and far apart. What a wonderful, what a holy gift is this Poetry.”

Treating the poetic gift as rare enough to be prized and cultivated · Letter to Richard Henry Stoddard, 26 April 1852

• Poetry
• Poets
• Wonder

“Happy is that man whose ideal of excellence is fixed far above the heads of the vulgar. This, and this alone, saves me; for I, alas, have all the weakness of flesh.”

On keeping praise at a distance by setting the standard higher than applause · Letter to Richard Henry Stoddard, about 1849

• Excellence
• Fame
• Humility