Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.

I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot of contamination must be an exquisite treasure-an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?

Jane, I never meant to wound you thus...Will you ever forgive me?" Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.

Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea.

A beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance.

I shall be thirty-one next birthday. My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it. What have I done these last thirty years? Precious little.

The word book acted as a transient stimulus