It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquility was no more.

I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they had nor could have sympathy with anything in me.

Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.

They will both be happy, and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own misery: some of my suffering is very acute. Truly, I ought not to have been born: they should have smothered me at first cry.

You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face.

Fair as a lily, and not only the pride of life, but the desire of his eyes

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.