The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid but ask of art to sacrifice herself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you.

She does not seem to stand at all in awe of her Elephant lord. She has her own little webs to weave––silvery webs of gossamer––discussions on politics, in which, bless her heart for a charming little Radical, she works neither good nor harm. .  .  . She has the prettiest hair, all loosely curling about her face, and she has a low voice so modulated as to seem to some folks affected; it is a natural music. .  .  . [S]he dresses “aesthetically”––in all sorts of strange tints, and rich stuffs .  .  . with large and wondrous sleeves and queer medieval adornments––it pleases her whim to do so, and it also pleases the Elephant, who is apt to get excited on the subject of Colour. .  .  . [S]he does not talk much, this quaint Fairy, but she looks whole histories. Her gaze is softly wistful, and often abstracted; at certain moments her spirit seems to have gone out of her on invisible wings, miles away from the Elephant and the literary Castle, and it is in such moments that she looks her very prettiest. To me she is infinitely more interesting than the Elephant himself .  .  . one never gets tired of looking at the lovely Fairy who guards and guides him.