Your beauty leaves me breathless," said Pereban. "Yet you find the breath to say so. - Tanith Lee

They were very careful and kind. So careful and kind it was positively tactless and spiteful.

At that, I understood for sure I must not lose her, for the earth is not the earth without some light to see it by, and she was mine.

I cried out. I turned the pages, one after the other, in a frenzy. I could not believe what I saw, would not believe it. For the pages of the book were blank.
Oh, yes, there had been writing, this much I could see, but the inks had faded. Now there were only faint smudges and marks here and there on the yellowness. And I could tell nothing from them…
It came to me, as I walked, how bitter the irony of the Book had been which had said: Herein the Truth. For it had a truth of its own in its bleached barrenness. What was truth except something which faded, lost its shape, grew unreadable and indistinguishable, at last a blank page for men to write on what they wished.