“The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.”

Using the ordered garden as an image for controlled literary art · Preface to Shakespeare

• Art
• Beauty
• Nature

“Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.”

Acknowledging the double edge of the desire to know · Rambler No. 161

• Joy
• Knowledge

“The brightest hours of prosperity have their clouds, and the stream of life, if it is not ruffled by obstructions, will grow putrid by stagnation.”

Suggesting that both difficulty and movement are inseparable from a living life · Rambler No. 165

• Joy
• Time