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It Was Pleasant To Me To Get A Letter From You The Other Day. Perhaps I Should Have Found It Pleasanter If I Had Been Able To Decipher It. I Don't Think That I Mastered Anything Beyond The Date (which I Knew) And The Signature (which I Guessed At). There's A Singular And A Perpetual Charm In A Letter Of Yours; It Never Grows Old, It Never Loses Its Novelty. Other Letters Are Read And Thrown Away And Forgotten, But Yours Are Kept Forever - Unread. One Of Them Will Last A Reasonable Man A Lifetime.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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It Was Pleasant To

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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It Was Pleasant To Me To Get A Letter From You The Other Day. Perhaps I Should Have Found It Pleasanter If I Had Been Able To Decipher It. I Don't Think That I Mastered Anything Beyond The Date (which I Knew) And The Signature (which I Guessed At). There's A Singular And A Perpetual Charm In A Letter Of Yours; It Never Grows Old, It Never Loses Its Novelty. Other Letters Are Read And Thrown Away And Forgotten, But Yours Are Kept Forever - Unread. One Of Them Will Last A Reasonable Man A Lifetime.

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O Harp Of Life, So Speedily Unstrung!

The Ocean Moans Over Dead Men's Bones.

The Thing One Reads And Likes, And Then Forgets, Is Of No Account. The Thing That Stays, And Haunts One, And Refuses To Be Forgotten, That Is The Sincere Thing.

My Father Invested His Money So Securely In The Banking Business That He Was Never Able To Get Any Of It Out Again.

Civilization Is The Lamb's Skin In Which Barbarism Masquerades.

Sorrow Itself Is Not So Hard To Bear As The Thought Of Sorrow Coming. Airy Ghosts, That Work No Harm, Do Terrify Us More Than Men In Steel With Bloody Purposes. Death Is Not Dreadful; 'tis The Dread Of Death— We Die Whene'er We Think Of It!

With The Tears A Land Hath Shed. Their Graves Should Ever Be Green.

No Bird Has Ever Uttered Note That Was Not In Some First Bird's Throat; Since Eden's Freshness And Man's Fall No Rose Has Been Original.

Gracious To All, To None Subservient, Without Offense He Spoke The Word He Meant

Decoration Day Is The Most Beautiful Of Our National Holidays.... The Grim Cannon Have Turned Into Palm Branches, And The Shell And Shrapnel Into Peach Blossoms.

Shakespeare Is Forever Coming Into Our Affairs -- Putting In His Oar, So To Speak -- With Some Pat Word Or Sentence.

When Friends Are At Your Hearthside Met, Sweet Courtesy Has Done Its Most If You Have Made Each Guest Forget That He Himself Is Not The Host.

Though I Be Shut In Darkness, And Become Insentient Dust Blown Idly Here And There, I Count Oblivion A Scant Price To Pay For Having Once Had Held Against My Lip Life's Brimming Cup Of Hydromel And Rue--for Having Once Known Woman's Holy Love And A Child's Kiss, And For A Little Space Been Boon Companion To The Day And Night, Fed On The Odors Of The Summer Dawn, And Folded In The Beauty Of The Stars. Dear Lord, Though I Be Changed To Senseless Clay, And Serve The Potter As He Turns His Wheel, I Thank Thee For The Gracious Gift Of Tears!

To Keep The Heart Unwrinkled, To Be Hopeful, Kindly, Cheerful, Reverent That Is To Triumph Over Old Age.

This One Sits Shivering In Fortune's Smile, Taking His Joy With Bated, Doubtful Breath. This Other, Gnawed By Hunger, All The While Laughs In The Teeth Of Death.

Everyone Has A Bookplate These Days, And The Collectors Are After It. The Fool And His Bookplate Are Soon Parted. To Distribute One's Ex Libris Is Inanely To Destroy The Only Significance It Has, That Of Indicating The Past Or Present Ownership Of The Volume In Which It Is Placed.

How Fugitive And Brief Is Mortal Life Between The Budding And The Falling Leaf.

The Man Who Suspects His Own Tediousness Is Yet To Be Born.

Great Orators Who Are Not Also Great Writers Become Very Indistinct Shadows To The Generations Following Them. The Spell Vanishes With The Voice.

Those Forms We Fancy Shadows, Those Strange Lights That Flash On Dank Morasses, The Quick Wind That Smites Us By The Roadside—are The Night's Innumerable Children. Unconfined By Shroud Or Coffin, Disembodied Souls, Uneasy Spirits, Steal Into The Air From Festering Graveyards When The Curfew Tolls At The Day's Death... And Wheresoever Murders Have Been Done, In Stately Palaces Or Lonesome Woods, Where'er A Soul Has Sold Itself And Lost Its High Inheritance, There, Hovering, Broods Some Sad, Invisible, Accurséd Ghost!

The Possession Of Gold Has Ruined Fewer Men Than The Lack Of It. What Noble Enterprises Have Been Checked And What Fine Souls Have Been Blighted In The Gloom Of Poverty The World Will Never Know.

So I Sit There Kicked My Heels, Thinking About New Orleans, And Watching A Morbid Blue-bottle Fly Attempt To Commit Suicide By Butting His Head Against The Windowpane.

I Like Not Lady-slippers, Nor Yet The Sweet-pea Blossoms, Nor Yet The Flaky Roses, Red Or White As Snow; I Like The Chaliced Lilies, The Heavy Eastern Lilies, The Gorgeous Tiger-lilies, That In Our Garden Grow.

Come Watch With Me The Shaft Of Fire That Glows In Yonder West; The Fair, Frail Palaces, The Fading Alps And Archipelagoes And Great Cloud Continents Of Sunset-seas.

My Mind Lets Go A Thousand Things, Like Dates Of Wars And Deaths Of Kings

Books That Have Become Classics - Books That Have Had Their Day And Now Get More Praise Than Perusal - Always Remind Me Of Retired Colonels And Majors And Captains Who, Having Reached The Age Limit, Find Themselves Retired On Half Pay.

The Fanatic Has The Courage Of His Conviction And The Intolerance Of His Courage. He Is Opposed To The Death Penalty For Murder, But He Would Willingly Have Anyone Electrocuted Who Disagreed With Him On The Subject.

What Is More Cheerful, Now, In The Fall Of The Year, Than An Open-wood-fire? Do You Hear Those Little Chirps And Twitters Coming Out Of That Piece Of Apple-wood? Those Are The Ghosts Of The Robins And Blue-birds That Sang Upon The Bough When It Was In Blossom Last Spring. In Summer Whole Flocks Of Them Come Fluttering About The Fruit-trees Under The Window: So I Have Singing Birds All The Year Round.

The Young Girl In My Story Is To Be As Sensitive To Praise As A Prism Is To Light. Whenever Anybody Praises Her She Breaks Into Colors.

A Man Is Known By The Company His Mind Keeps.

O Liberty...! Is It Well To Leave The Gates Unguarded?

The Walking Delegates Of A Higher Civilization, Who Have Nothing To Divide, Look Upon The Notion Of Property As A Purely Artificial Creation Of Human Society. According To These Advanced Philosophers, The Time Will Come When No Man Shall Be Allowed To Call Anything His. The Beneficent Law Which Takes Away An Author's Rights In His Own Books Just At The Period When Old Age Is Creeping Upon Him Seems To Me A Handsome Stride Toward The Longed-for Millennium.

After A Debauch Of Thunder-shower, The Weather Takes The Pledge And Signs It With A Rainbow.

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What Probing Deep Has Ever Solved The Mystery Of Sleep?

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