A rose will not flower in the dark, and a fern will not flower anywhere.
What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's corolla ?--I don't like to say.

They spoil a good many, I am afraid; or at least they shine on a good many that never come to anything.
Who are THEY ?--said the schoolmistress.
Women.

Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his best reward.
The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased .-- Did I really think so ?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true poem.

Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,--to a woman and it is a harp-string.

She is vibratile and resonant all over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her .-- Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,--what color would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's praises! I should have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- "Lilies without; roses within!" But then,--he added,--we all think, IF so and so, we should have been this or that, as you were saying the other day, in those rhymes of yours.
-- I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and sorrows, every literature is full.