“Oh, I am devoured by ambition. I do so want to do something that will last, — some man's work in the world, — that I am constantly depressed by an awful dread that perhaps I shan't be able to.”

Expressing the intense drive to achieve lasting work alongside the fear of falling short · Letter to his mother, near the end of college, 1895

• Ambition
• Anxiety
• Purpose

“Life — our life, his life, the life of the human soul — is quite continuous, I'm convinced: one thing with another, big and little, sad and gay, real and false, and the whole business just life, which is its own punishment and reward, its own beginning and end.”

Finding continuity and meaning in the unbroken flow of existence despite loss · Letter, November 1904, after the death of Trumbull Stickney

• Continuity
• Death
• Life

“I am almost crazed with the desire to be independent, and yet I won't do anything that I don't approve and I won't give up my writing, God willing. I must keep at it and accomplish what I can in my own way.”

Asserting the priority of artistic integrity over conventional independence · Letter to his mother, July 1899

• Independence
• Integrity
• Writing