Time stills the loud noise of opinions, sinks the small, raises the great, so that the true emerges without effort and in perfect harmony to all eyes; but the truth of the present hour, except in particulars and single relations, is unattainable.

Each man can very well know his own part of duty, if he will; but to bring out the truth for beauty, and as literature, surmounts the powers of art.

The most elaborate history of today will have the oddest dislocated look in the next generation.

The historian of today is yet three ages off.

The poet cannot descend into the turbid present without injury to his rarest gifts.