A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth.
How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not – have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.
The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset – that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.
If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: Byron is dead!
In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I-ity, or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting and alas! self-seeking me.
Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.
