I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains.

I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,' said Diana, 'during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you - he will make it up.'I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him - he stood at the foot of the stairs.

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.

If I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from the easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose myself?

Poverty, for me, is synonymous with degradation.

The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.