It was the week after Easter holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hil… - Thomas Hardy

"Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know." He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. "O, Angel — I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob. "And I wanted so to see you again — so much, so much! What — not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?"

And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have deliberately chosen as a friend — or even for one of a group of a dozen friends — he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and even heart, as a makeshift.

Alive enough to have strength to die