The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.

The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter - in the eye.

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand - they only. Know this at last.

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.

My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations.