I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared.

Death is a mighty, universal truth.

The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.

There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe.

And I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself.

Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another, when you do differ.

Home is a word stronger than a magician ever spoke.