“Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards.”

“I have little left in myself -- I must have you. The world may laugh -- may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”

“So you shun me? - you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, that your heart has been weeping blood?”

“But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself?”

“I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution -- such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight -- to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood -- no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet -- That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength.”

“I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth,but i experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed, and the flame of resentment extinguished”

“All my life was awake and astir in my frame...and he I was not to array myself to meet.”