“Eccentricity is developed monomania.”

Really,’ thought I, ‘we call Baltimore the ‘Monumental City’ for its two marble columns, and here is Edinburg with one at every street-corner!

Departed suns their trails of splendor drew Across departed summers: whispers came From voices, long ago resolved again Into the primeval Silence, and we twain, Ghosts of our present selves, yet still the same, As in a spectral mirror wandered there.

Fame is what you have taken, / Character’s what you give; / When to this truth you waken, / Then you begin to live.

And rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds, Is one with Prayer.

The glories of the possible are ours.

The loving are the daring.

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it’s unattainable, all the same.

To Truth’s house there is a single door, which is experience.

Pansies in soft April rains Fill their stalks with honeyed sap Drawn from Earth’s prolific lap.

Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him.

Voluptuous bloom and fragrance rare The summer to its rose may bring; Far sweeter to the wooing air The hidden violet of spring. Still, still that lovely ghost appears, Too fair, too pure, to bid depart; No riper love of later years Can steal its beauty from the heart.

Higher than the perfect song For which love longeth, Is the tender fear of wrong, That never wrongeth.

With rushing winds and gloomy skies The dark and stubborn Winter dies: Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries, Bidding her earliest child arise; March!

It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one’s own.

And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens, Are singing the selfsame strain.

The lamp you lighted in the olden time Will show you my heart’s-blood beating through the rhyme: A poet’s journal, writ in fire and tears… Then slow deliverance, with the gaps of years.

Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

Resisting conformity and developing some small eccentricities are among the steps to independence and self-confidence.