Strength, strength it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.
Happiness follows sorrow, sorrow follows happiness, but when one no longer discriminates happiness and sorrow, a good deal and a bad deed, one is able to realize freedom.
Genuine sorrows are very tranquil in appearance in the deep bed they have dug for themselves. But, seeming to slumber, they corrode the soul like that frightful acid which penetrates crystal.
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,--which taste cannot tolerate,--which ridicule will seize.
To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but at the same time, Elinor, one would not be without experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived.