“Above all, there was Almah. Everything combined to make her most dear to me. My life has been such that I never before had seen anyone whome I loved; and here Almah was the one congenial and sympathetic, and I loved her dearly, even before I understood what my feelings were. One day I learned all, and found that she was more precious to me than all the world.”
“I fell in love with the young assistant professor who took me through my first poetry course. Really in love--that is, enough to alarm Mother. Although naturally I never breathed my feelings to a soul--although naturally the first time she suggested that I might invite him home for tea I went to my room and shook for forty minutes. So she may have noticed something. In any case, in order to patrol the situation, she enrolled in his courses. And, as we bore the same name, she was seated beside me where not the flickering of an eyelash escaped her attention. I never have heard of this happening to anyone else in the history of education.”
“will you stay here? No. Will you go back? You can’t. We must, therefore, go on. That’s is our only hope.Horror is a feeling that cannot last long; human nature is incapable of supporting it.Poverty, sicknes, and death are evils; but the worst of all evils is unrequited love.”
“Light streamed through one of the windows and across her face and I have never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. If my heart had stopped at that moment I would have fallen happy and fallen full and I would have seen in life all that I had wanted to see and all that I needed to see. Fall. Let me fall.”
“The feeling of arms around me, of love in my heart, it was more powerful than any of the negativity I knew was existing in the world for me. That feeling of love killed it all.”
“He asks me which of them two I liked best. Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once--I don't know--I've forgotten; but I loved James Wilson, that's now on trial, above what tongue can tell--above all else on earth put together; and I love him now better than ever, though he has never known a word of it till this minute... I never found out how dearly I loved another till one day, when James Wilson asked me to marry him, and I was very hard and sharp in my answer (for indeed, sir, I'd a deal to bear just then), and he took me at my word and left me; and from that day to this I've never spoken a word to him, or set eyes on him; though I'd fain have done so, to try and show him we had both been too hasty; for he'd not been gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved--far above my life," said she, dropping her voice as she came to this second confession of the strength of her attachment. "But, if the gentleman asks me which I loved the best, I make answer, I was flattered by Mr. Carson, and pleased with his flattery; but James Wilson, I"--She covered her face with her hands, to hide the burning scarlet blushes, which even dyed her fingers.”
“Horror is a feeling that cannot last long; human nature is incapable of supporting it. Sadness, whether it be from bereavement, or disappointment, or misfortune of any kind may linger on through life”