I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind.

I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.

As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.

Spring drew on... and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that hope traversed them at night and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

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

... and she held out a pretty gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours and you are mine; and we shall leave Earth and make our own Heaven yonder.'

I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another degree: he is more my own. [ . . . ] Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun returned, his light was night to some!