Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the… - Thomas Bailey Aldrich

When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence.

My dear Mr. Morse: It was very 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. One can say to one's self every morning: "There's that letter of Morse's. I haven't read it yet. I think I'll take another shy at it to-day, and maybe I shall be able in the course of a few years to make out what he means by those t's that look like w's and those i's that haven't any eyebrows." 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.

Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.