the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families . . . - George Eliot

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.

Truth is the precious harvest of the earth. But once, when harvest waved upon a land, The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar, Locusts, and all the swarming foul-born broods, Fastened upon it with swift, greedy jaws, And turned the harvest into pestilence, Until men said, What profits it to sow?

Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness.