All the principal Italian composers were _in flower_ about the age of
twenty-five. There is scarcely an instance of a musician producing his
_chef-d'oeuvre_ after the age of thirty. Rossini was not twenty when he
composed his _Tancredi_, and his _Italiana in Algieri_.
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The most important principle perhaps in life is to have a pursuit--a
useful one if possible, and at all events an innocent one. The unripe
fruit tree of knowledge is, I believe, always bitter or sour; and
scepticism and discontent--sickness of the mind--are often the results of
devouring it.--_Sir Humphry Davy_.
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