I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.
Ann RadcliffeBut no matter for that, you can be tolerably happy, perhaps, notwithstanding; but as for guessing how happy I am, or knowing anything about the matter,--- O! its quite beyond what you can understand.
Ann RadcliffeAnd since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them.
Ann RadcliffeHe loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through รฆther, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.
Ann Radcliffe