Date: 1869

"His mind resembled chiefly the rugged and outstanding mountain, and yet it had characteristics which reminded you likewise of the gentle stream, flowing sweetly through the valley below."

— Sprague, William Buell (1795-1876)

Date: October 10, 1869

"Recitations alone readily degenerate into dusty repetitions, and lectures alone are too often a useless expenditure of force. The lecturer pumps laboriously into sieves. The water may be wholesome, but it runs through."

— Eliot, Charles William (1834-1926)

Date: 1873

"There thou sittest in thy wonted corner / Lone and awful in thy darkened mind."

— Lowell, James Russell (1819-1891)

Date: Late Autumn, 1882

"A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the mind alone, without corporeal friend?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1889

"The story is a fiction, -- the coinage of the brain, -- the book a reality."

— Hare, John Innes Clark (1816-1905)

Date: 1890

"Imps in eager caucus / Raffle for my  soul."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"I've known her from an ample nation / Choose one; / Then close the valves of her attention / Like stone."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"To fight aloud is very brave, / But gallanter, I know, / Who charge within the bosom, / The cavalry of woe."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"The brain within its groove / Runs evenly and true."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"Have you got a brook in your little heart, / Where bashful flowers blow, / And blushing birds go down to drink, / And shadows tremble so?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)