So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist. Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Those who talk of the Bible as a 'monument of English prose' are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth. The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence. There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. | 
