...she Moved About In A Mental Cloud

And At Home By The Fire, Whenever You Look Up There I Shall Be— And Whenever I Look Up, There Will Be You. -gabriel Oak

Once Let A Maiden Admit The Possibility Of Her Being Stricken With Love For Some One At A Certain Hour And Place, And The Thing Is As Good As Done.

Christmas Eve, And Twelve Of The Clock. "now They Are All On Their Knees," An Elder Said As We Sat In A Flock By The Embers In Hearth-side Ease. We Pictured The Meek Mild Creatures Where They Dwelt In Their Strawy Pen, Nor Did It Occur To One Of Us There To Doubt They Were Kneeling Then. So Fair A Fancy Few Would Weave In These Years! Yet, I Feel If Someone Said On Christmas Eve, "come; See The Oxen Kneel, In The Lonely Barton By Yonder Coomb Our Childhood Used To Know," I Should Go With Him In The Gloom, Hoping It Might Be So.

I Have Felt Lately, More And More, That My Present Way Of Living Is Bad In Every Respect.

Never In Her Life – She Could Swear It From The Bottom Of Her Soul – Had She Ever Intended To Do Wrong; Yet These Hard Judgments Had Come. Whatever Her Sins, They Were Not Sins Of Intention, But Of Inadvertence, And Why Should She Have Been Punished So Persistently?