The Time Is Ripe, And

A Friendship Counting Nearly Forty Years Is The Finest Kind Of Shade-tree I Know.

Have You Ever Rightly Considered What The Mere Ability To Read Means? That It Is The Key Which Admits Us To The Whole World Of Thought And Fancy And Imagination? To The Company Of Saint And Sage, Of The Wisest And The Wittiest At Their Wisest And Wittiest Moment? That It Enables Us To See With The Keenest Eyes, Hear With The Finest Ears, And Listen To The Sweetest Voices Of All Time? More Than That, It Annihilates Time And Space For Us.

Suddenly All The Sky Is Hid As With The Shutting Of A Lid, One By One Great Drops Are Falling Doubtful And Slow, Down The Pane They Are Crookedly Crawling, And The Wind Breathes Low; Slowly The Circles Widen On The River, Widen And Mingle, One And All; Here And There The Slenderer Flowers Shiver, Struck By An Icy Rain-drop’s Fall.

O Reputation! Dearer Far Than Life.

These Pearls Of Thought In Persian Gulfs Were Bred, Each Softly Lucent As A Rounded Moon; The Diver Omar Plucked Them From Their Bed, Fitzgerald Strung Them On An English Thread.