All the earth, though it were full of kind hearts, is but a desolation and desert place to a mother when her only child is absent.
Elizabeth GaskellMargaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.
Elizabeth GaskellI never did write a biography, and I don't exactly know how to set about it; you see I have to be accurate and keep to the facts, a most difficult thing for a writer of fiction.
Elizabeth Gaskell