“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

“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

“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