No poet is ever really young... Their delicate ears always hear the far-off whisper of death, which coarser souls must travel towards for years before their duller senses touch....

People admired her poetry, but she knew there were plenty of readers who questioned it. How could she write brokenhearted verse if she never loved? Why did she compose so much about death if she knew little of life?

In younger years, he’d wonder whether he was more doctor or writer. Since the dark period back home, he questioned if he was really either—witnessing death all around him had robbed him of both.

When Dickens arrives in the United States in November of 1867, he's already in questionable health. So by the end of the trip, he was really in failing condition, and really, he would never recover completely after this point, and you could sort of draw a straight line to his ultimate decline and death.