“To lead a life so wholly happy, so wholly unexamined that she could be dying, could be betrayed, could be besieged on all sides and never even know it.”

“For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see.”

“And she kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.”

“We were so wholly one I had not thoughtThat we could die apart. I had not thoughtThat I could move,—and you be stiff and still!That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woofIn some firm fabric, woven in and out;Your golden filaments in fair designAcross my duller fibre.”

“And she's alive, so alive that even the sun wants a piece of her, and that's what hurts most of all. That someone so alive could possibly be dying. And worse, that as she dies, we all seem to be dying too, somehow, especially Mum.”

“Boo'ful," she said, "life could be so diff'rent—""But it never is," I said.”