The Painter's skill has seized a moment where Her hand is wreathing mid his raven hair; And he is bent in worship, as that touch, That soft light tou… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters; our equals are the tools wherewith experience works out its lessons; and the play-ground, with its rival interests, its injustices, its necessity for the ready wit and the curbed temper is both miniature and prophesy of the world, which will but bring back the old struggles only with a sterner aspect, and the same successes, but with more than half their enjoyment departed.

Your Dante ! Homer of the Christian age,
The sacred poet of Faith's mysteries—
Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged
In Styx, and pierced to hell ; and whose deep soul
Was like the abyss it fathomed.

It must, however, be admitted, that the hard circumstances form the strong character, as the cold climes of the north nurture a race of men, whose activity and energies leave those of the south far behind. Hence it is that the characters of women are more uniform than men ; they are rarely placed in circumstances to call forth the latent powers of the mind.