“I do not wish to assert that the kind of verse which happened to reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life is the best kind of verse in itself.”

A rare moment of self-critical humility about his own early work · Preface, second edition of Silhouettes, 1896

• Art
• Truth

“If ever there was a religion of the eyes, I have devoutly practised that religion. I noted every face that passed me on the pavement.”

His confession of a poet's compulsive, hungry attention to the visible world · Prose reminiscence on his early years in London

• Art
• Beauty

“He does not realise, as the great novelists have realised, that stupidity can be pathetic, and that there is not a peasant in whom the soul has not its part.”

His insistence that even unremarkable lives hold something worth an artist's sympathy · Critical essay on Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

• Art
• Truth