Happiness...

I will probably use this in a future publication, so you will be able to say you read it first!  Gleaned from the Peterborough Archives (D14 p9), it's not really an aphorism and I was looking for a piece to extract from it.  I gave up, so here it is in its entirety.

"As we grow into life we leave our better life behind us   like the image of a beauty seen in a looking glass      happiness only disseminates happiness while she is present & when she is gone we retain no impression of her enjoyments   but a blank of cold imaginings & real dissapointments     unless we are determined to shape our conduct by her approval   & then she is ever with us   [no]t her picture but her perfection   not in shadow but reality -- read this over & profit by it"

The picture is a little known portrait of Clare from 1855.

Knowledge...

"Knowledge teaches us humanity"

Pet MS B4 p130

Applause...

"a thundering clap in the gallerys..."

Pet MS B4 p127

The fool...

"The fool may ask much but he is more fool that gives it"

Pet MS A45 p44

Life...

"They who are not handsome at twenty nor strong at thirty nor rich at forty nor wise at fifty will never be handsome strong rich or wise"

Pet MS A18 p274

Of poetry... and childhood"

“It is the genuine essence of poetry that hangs around the simple essence of our childhood”    

Pet MS A49 p1

Poacher's song

"A shining night is our delight"

Pet MS B4 p80R

I do not think this poem - a song of four verses each with eight lines - has ever been published, but still lots of work to do on it.  Transcribed by Bridget & Roger on the 9th September 2016.