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

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.

He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. 'Oh, Jane! my hope - my love - my life!' broke in anguish from his lips.

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.

It is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Reader, I married him.