The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for an audience, and the fact of his not expecting any particular reader does not prevent him from having a vague composite picture in his mind of the sort of people who will eventually read him.

The poet only asks to get his head into the world, but the world always strikes a poet down. It may be very hard in the world to live with the poet; but imagine how hard it must be to live with the poet in oneself and to be bound by him in chains.