Eric Byrd

“He had in mind no scheme for a composition, but he was planning a literary career, after the manner of Gibbon, for which he proposed to lay a firm foundation. This was one of the solid Boston customs. As John Quincy Adams had laid a foundation for the statesman's life, based on blocks of good political granite, so Prescott put his blocks together, first clearing the ground with a thorough study of the English tongue. Let the suitable subject find him ready, even the suitable field of concentration. He had made up his mind that the age of thirty-five was soon enough to put pen to paper. English grammar first, as if he had never gone to school or college. For style, Sidney, Bacon, Browne and Milton. One hour a day for the Latin classics, Tacitus and Livy for elevation: he knew them by heart already, but this was a different matter. A year devoted to French, from Froissart to Chateaubriand. A year for Italian, another year for Spanish. There he paused, there he felt at home, too much at home to carry on with German. His eyes were not equal to the Gothic script.”
― Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865

“As I understand it, and as you allow me to practice it, criticism is, like philosophy and history, a sort of romance designed for those who have sagacious and curious minds, and every romance is, rightly taken, a sort of autobiography. The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”
― Anatole France, On Life & Letters

“I always went alone to the palaces where collections of pictures and statues were exhibited, so as not to have my enjoyment spoiled by stupid remarks or questions. All these palaces are open to strangers, and much gratitude is due to the great Roman nobles for being so obliging. It may seem hard to believe, but it is true that one might spend one's whole life in palaces and churches.”
― Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

“Then Montesquieu was mentioned, and somebody described his first love-affair, a Baudelairean love-affair with a female ventriloquist who, while Montesquieu was straining to achieve his climax, would imitate the drunken voice of a pimp, threatening the aristocratic client.”
― Edmond de Goncourt, Pages from the Goncourt Journals