Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Thomas Bailey Aldrichwas an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of The Atlantic Monthly, during which he published works by Charles Chesnutt and others. He was also known for his semi-autobiographical book The Story of a Bad Boy, and for his poetry, which included "The Unguarded Gates"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 November 1836
CountryUnited States of America
laughing optimism joy
This one sits shivering in Fortune's smile, taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath. This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while laughs in the teeth of Death.
letting-go kings war
My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings
forever speak affair
Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence.
father able banking
My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.
sleep turns delicate
Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
sleep mystery probing
What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?
death-penalty murder intolerance
The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.
sunset sea fire
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows in yonder West; the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes and great cloud continents of sunset-seas.
wine waiting tonight
I beg you come tonight and dine A welcome waits you and sound wine The Roederer chilly to a charm As Juno's breasts the claret warm ...
communication care dialect
Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.
humorous men thinking
It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever - unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.
sand ends all-the-best
All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do sowould I?
passes sympathy
What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness.
admit american-poet average child parent
There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent who will admit that it is his child.