There's A Friendly Tie Of Some Sort

How I Have Tried And Tried To Be A Splendid Woman, And How Destiny Has Been Against Me! ...i Do Not Deserve My Lot! ...o, The Cruelty Of Putting Me Into This Ill-conceived World! I Was Capable Of Much; But I Have Been Injured And Blighted And Crushed By Things Beyond My Control! O, How Hard It Is Of Heaven To Devise Such Tortures For Me, Who Have Done No Harm To Heaven At All!

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.

The Smile On Your Mouth Was The Deadest Thing Alive Enough To Have Strength To Die. (from "neutral Tones")

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?

Many Of Her Thoughts Were Perfect Syllogisms; Unluckily They Always Remained Thoughts. Only A Few Were Irrational Assumptions; But, Unfortunately, They Were The Ones Which Most Frequently Grew Into Deeds