"Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind."
"The realm of death seems an enemy's country to most men, on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather; to the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles; it is the golden west into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts back a glory upon the leaden cloud-tack which had darkly besieged his day."
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Source: James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.111
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