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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

CXXVII



In the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty\'s name;

But now is black beauty\'s successive heir,

And beauty slander\'d with a bastard shame:

For since each hand hath put on Nature\'s power, 

Fairing the foul with Art\'s false borrowed face,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

But is profan\'d, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress\' eyes are raven black,

Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

Sland\'ring creation with a false esteem:

  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,

  That every tongue says beauty should look so.

 	--William Shakespeare

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own
reason for existing. --Albert Einstein

XXI



So is it not with me as with that Muse,

Stirr\'d by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compare\'

With sun and moon, with earth and sea\'s rich gems,

With April\'s first-born flowers, and all things rare,

That heaven\'s air in this huge rondure hems.

O! let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother\'s child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fix\'d in heaven\'s air:

  Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

 	--William Shakespeare