Memory in youth is active and easily impressible; in old age it is comparatively callous to new impressions, but still retains vividly those of earlier years.

You — you strange — you almost unearthly thing! — I love as my own flesh. You — poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are — I entreat to accept me as a husband.

To you I am neither man nor woman. I come before you as an author only.

Friendship however is a plant which cannot be forced -- true friendship is no gourd spring up in a night and withering in a day.

Your will shall decide your destiny.

After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love--I have found you.

I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest -- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.