Staff

The holiest act is to create, to bring more things into existence.

The most charming of all gifts is that of being able to express one’s thoughts with elegance; it will often supply the place of wit even for those who have none…

Below, Samuel Johnson writes to close friend James Elphinston, whose mother had recently passed. “I read the letters in which you relate your mother’s death to Ms. Strahan,” confides Johnson, “and I think I do myself honour, when I tell you … Continued

Indeed I am grieved on your account that I am not at the same time happy—But I conjure you to think at Present of nothing but pleasure—“Gather the rose, etc.”—gorge the honey of life.

It doubtless seems somewhat strange that I am writing you, since (in the greatness of your generosity) you have given me the possibility of seeing you so often. But always in your presence I feel the imperfection of my language like a sickness that separates me from you even at the moment when I am very near.

…I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? and Why?