“You need not attempt to shake off or to banter off Romance. It is an evil you will never get rid of to the end of your days. It is a part of yourself … of your soul. Age will only mellow it a little, and give it a holier tone.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, September 21, 1839, to Philip P. Cooke, ed. John Ward Ostrom (1966). Romance, embraced and transfigured.