“None of us ever escape the first few years of our lives. They make a mould into which we are cast, and though it may be broken, and we turned loose, some remnant of it, some intangible evil or lovely thing or both, will remain with us, like the odor to a flower, or the smoothness to a piece of ivory. It is part of the immortality of youth.”

On the indelible shaping power of early childhood · A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days, 1929

• Childhood
• Memory
• Youth

“For poetry, more than any other art, except music, has a compelling hold upon the spiritual side of life.”

Asserting poetry's unique power over the inner life · Prose writings or reminiscences

• Art
• Poetry
• Spirit