The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth. The holy sensibilities of genius — for all the sensibilities of genius are holy — keep their possessor essentially unhurt as long as animal spirits and the idea of being young last; but the perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth; when the world comes to them, not with the song of the siren, against which all books warn us, but as a wise old man counselling acquiescence in what is below them.
From a letter to her friend Louisa Hawthorne, 1838
Use the link below to read more about the life and work of North American writer, educator and transcendentalist publisher ELIZABETH PALMER PEABODY (1804–1894):
https://www.thoughtco.com/elizabeth-palmer-peabody-biography-3530587
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