Sublime

Merlin is seen in his Ovate role when he utters the prophecies compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century.

the spring of her heroine’s errors, and of many of ours. That spring is a philanthropy, and even a generosity, secretly founded on gentility.

That is the mark of the truly great man: that he sees the common man afar off, and worships him.

In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

G. K. Chesterton once said of Charles Dickens, “Dickens didn’t write what people wanted. Dickens wanted what people wanted.”

No house of any pretension to be called a palace is in the least worthy of the name, except it has a wood near it—very near it—and the nearer the better.

The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there.

The great sun, benighted, May faint from the sky; But love, once uplighted, Will never more die.