Sunday, March 8, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, June 4, 1863

Camp Brightwood, June 4, 1863.

I think it all comes back to my old maxim, “keep healthy and well-balanced,” cut off instincts only when they are growing too long or too thick for other instincts: a man is meant to act and to undertake, to try and succeed in his undertakings, to take all means which he believes necessary to success ; but he must not let his undertakings look too large, and make a slave of him; still less must he let the means. He must keep free and grow integrally.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 253

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