...nothing has humbled me so much as your love. Right or wrong it may be, but true it is, and I tell you. Your love has been to me like God's own love, which makes the receivers of it kneelers.

In a man's letters, you know, madam, his soul lies naked. His letters are only the mirror of his heart. Whatever passes within him is there shown undisguised in its natural progress; nothing is invented, nothing distorted; you see systems in their elements, you discover action in their motives. Samuel Johnson to Mrs. Thrale (1777)

...your soul can never be long going to the fixed stars, where I intend to settle; or else you may find me in the milky way.

I had a sense of your presence constantly.

...you influenced me, in a way in which no one else did.

I like the word 'affection' because it signifies something habitual, and we are soon to meet to try whether we have mind enough to keep our hearts warm.

...you have not only a very large portion of my affection and esteem, but all that I am capable of feeling...

To sit down so often with nothing to say,-to say something so often, almost without consciousness of saying and without any remembrance or having said,-is a power of which I will not violate my modesty by boasting; but I do not believe everyone has it.