To anything fanciful, to anything spiritual, their minds are deaf and blind by nature.

Now and then, in the course of centuries, a great genius springs up among them; and he is the exception which proves the rule.

Now see! I, though I am no genius--I am, in my little way (as I suppose), an exception too.

To my sorrow, I have some of that imagination which is so common among the English and the Germans--so rare among the Italians, the Spaniards, and the rest of them! And what is the result?
I think it has become a disease in me.
I am filled with presentiments which make this wicked life of mine one long terror to me.

It doesn't matter, just now, what they are.