Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out. - Charles Dickens

I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

Love is not a feeling to pass away, Like the balmy breath of a summer day; It is not — it cannot be — laid aside; It is not a thing to forget or hide. It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me! As the ivy clings to the old oak tree. Love is not a passion of earthly mould, As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold: For when all these wishes have died away, The deep strong love of a brighter day, Though nourished in secret, consumes the more, As the slow rust eats to the iron’s core.