36 Quotes by Edmund Clarence Stedman

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.

Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting.

Yes, there's a luck in most things; and in none more than being born at the right time.

No, he was no such charlatan-- Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-Pan-- Full of gasconade and bravado, But a regular, rich Don Rataplane, Santa Claus de la Muscavado, Senor Grandissimo Bastinado! His was the rental of half Havana And all Matanzas; and Santa Ana, Rich as he was, could hardly hold A candle to light the mines of gold Our Cuban owned.

Is there a rarer being, Is there a fairer sphere Where the strong are not unseeing, And the harvests are not sere; Where, ere the seasons dwindle They yield their due return; Where the lamps of knowledge kindle While the flames of youth still burn?

Look on this cast, and know the hand That bore a nation in its hold; From this mute witness understand What Lincoln was - how large of mould.

Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale Is wild within me! what may quell That sullen tempest? I must sail Whither, O whither, who can tell!

A critic must accept what is best in a poet, and thus become his best encourager.

The critic's first labor is the task of distinguishing between men, as history and their works display them, and the ideals which one and another have conspired to urge upon his acceptance.