One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.

Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam?

He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

. . . it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place.

She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!

She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.

He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.