He Is My First Olive: Let Me

But With The Increase Of Serious And Just Ground Of Complaint, A New Kind Of Patience Had Sprung Up In Her Mother's Mind. She Was Gentle And Quiet In Intense Bodily Suffering, Almost In Proportion As She Had Been Restless And Depressed When There Had Been No Real Cause For Grief.

She Would Fain Have Caught At The Skirts Of That Departing Time, And Prayed It To Return, And Give Her Back What She Had Too Little Valued While It Was Yet In Her Possession. What A Vain Show Life Seemed! How Unsubstantial, And Flickering, And Flitting! It Was As If From Some Aerial Belfry, High Up Above The Stir And Jar Of The Earth, There Was A Bell Continually Tolling, ‘all Are Shadows!—all Are Passing!—all Is Past!

It Is Odd Enough To See How The Entrance Of A Person Of The Opposite Sex Into An Assemblage Of Either Men Or Women Calms Down The Little Discordances And The Disturbance Of Mood.

He Loved Her, And Would Love Her; And Defy Her, And This Miserable Bodily Pain.

What Could He Mean By Speaking So, As If I Were Always Thinking That He Cared For Me, When I Know He Does Not; He Cannot. ... But I Won't Care For Him. I Surely Am Mistress Enough Of Myself To Control This Wild, Strange, Miserable Feeling