Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets...noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

-James Joyce, "Araby", Dubliners

 I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs - your part, my part

In life, for good and ill.

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now?

...Only I discern-

Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn.

-Robert Browning
Love, oh Love, whose bitter-sweetness,

Dooms me to this lasting pain,

Thou who camest with so much fleetness,

Why so slow to go again?

Why? Why?

-Thomas Moore, Still, Like Dew In Silence Falling
Malcolm, leaning on his gun, stood watching her as she seated herself on the top step.
“You never gave me any four-leaf clover, Lloyd,” he said as Rob strode away.
“You nevah happened to be around when I found any.”
Malcolm flushed a trifle. He was nearly sixteen, tall and broad-shouldered, but the color came as easily to his handsome face now as when a little fellow of ten he had begged her to keep his silver arrow ‘to remember him by.’
"Lloyd, I’m going to ask you for something. It’s just a little curl of your hair. I want to put it in the back of my watch as a talisman, like they used to carry in old times, you know - I want to carry it with me always...”
Lloyd bent her head so far over that he could not see how red her face grew. How handsome he was, she thought. If she hadn’t ever heard the Hildegarde story, there might have crept into her fancy the thought that this was the love written for her in the stars. But the warning of patience came to her recollection.
“I - I can’t, Malcolm.”
“Why not? You gave Rob the clover to carry in his watch.”
“That was different. Rob doesn’t care for the clovah on my account. He carries it for the good luck it brings, not because I gave it to him.”
“But he’ll get to caring after awhile,” he replied moodily. “Nobody could help it who knew you, and I don’t want him to. Would you give him the curl if he asked for it?”
Something in his tone made Lloyd look up with a provoking little smile.
“No, not even the snippiest little snip of a hair, if he asked for it the way you are doing, and wanted it to mean what you do - that he was my - my chosen knight.”
“I’m in earnest, Lloyd. Don’t you care for me at all?”
She wanted to tell him that she could not give away even a strand of Clotho’s golden thread before she was old enough to choose wisely the one on whom to bestow such a favor. But she knew that he would not understand. How could she put into words the vague, undefined feeling that he must not come to her with such speeches until he had won his spurs and received his accolade. It was her helplessness to answer that made her spring up impatiently:
“Of co’se I care for you. I think you’re one of the nicest boys I know, but you might at least wait till you come back from college and let me see what sawt of a man you’ve turned out to be!”
“I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Lloyd,.”
“Then why don’t you still weah that little pin you used to weah on your lapel - the white flowah that stood for living a blameless life, to live pure, speak truth, and right the wrong like a true Knight?”
“Oh, I’ve outgrown that child’s play. Besides, it’s impossible for a fellow in this age to live up to it. But I’ll wear it again for your sake.”
But at that response the Little Colonel was glad she had answered him as she did.

-The Little Colonel at Boarding School, Annie Fellows Johnston
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date...

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st...

-Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
Thou, whose soft and rosy hues

Mimic form and soul infuse,

Best of painters, come portray

The lovely maid that's far away,

Far away, my soul! thou art,

But I've thy beauties all by heart.

-Thomas Moore, Ode of Anacreon
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Night and the sombre silence, oh, my love, and one star shining! First, warm, velvety sleep, and then this quick, quiet waking to your voice which seems to call me. Is it - is it you that calls? Do you sometimes, even in your dreams, speak to me? Far beneath unconsciousness is there the summons of your spirit to me?...I like to think so. I like to think that this thing which has come to us is deeper, greater than we are. Sometimes day and night there flash before my eyes - my mind’s eyes - pictures of you and me in places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realized future, alas! Yet these swift-moving shutters of the soul, or imagination, or reality - who shall say which? - give me a joy never before felt in life. If I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy - my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, my soul on you - that beautiful, beloved face; those deep, lucid eyes in which my being is drowned...that have bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go forward; now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. “O Cithaeron!” Turn from me now - or never, O my love! Loose me from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea of your forgetfulness now - or never!...But keep me, keep me, if your love is great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I am yours to my uttermost note of life.

-When Time Shall Pass, Northern Lights by Gilbert Parker
How great love is, presence best trial makes,

But absence tries how long this love will be.

-John Donne
Love, we are in God's hand.

How strange now looks the life he makes us lead;

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

I feel He laid the fetter: let it lie!

-Robert Browning
LLOYD: Sit down here by the fire, Rob, and I’ll pop some cawn for us.

ROB: You still haven’t answered my question. Are you going to the Valentine's Ball?

LLOYD: (With a laugh) I'm not perfectly suah. I think Mammy Eastah’s fortune will come true. There won’t be any prince in my tea-cup.

ROB: Why?

LLOYD: The shadows of the world have blurred everything. Out heah in the country I’d grown up believing that it’s a kind, honest old world. I took my conception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby and Aunt Alicia, and your fathah and mothah. They made me think that marriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm can hurt. But this wintah at all the parties, I found out that everyone makes fun of that kind of marriage. It's out of fashion now. Out there in society marriage is a mattah of scandal and divorce and unhappiness. It made me heart-sick to hear the tales. I came to little Mary Ware’s conclusion, that it’s safah to be an old maid.

ROB: (Smiling at her serious face) You mustn’t lose faith in your ideals, Lloyd, even if you feel disillusioned. It just means you've got to fight for them with more faith and passion. You were born to be far more than an old maid.

LLOYD: But you haven’t accepted any invitations this season.

ROB: I prefer to keep far from the madding crowd. Besides, flowers and carriages and the bummed up feeling that follows make it too expensive for a poor man like me. So now, are you going to the fancy dress ball?

LLOYD: Well, I suppose I shouldn’t miss the last big affair of the season. Mistah Whitlow....

ROB: (Sternly) Whitlow! Lloyd you don’t mean to say you’re going with that man. Some of the others are bad enough but he's a downright rogue. You simply can’t go with him.

LLOYD: Well, you needn’t ro’ah so.

ROB: Rather than let you go with him, I’ll take you myself!

LLOYD: What a sweet martyr-like spirit. I certainly feel flattered at the way you put it, and I appreciate the great sacrifice you’re willing to make for my sake on the altah of friendship.

ROB: You know very well, Lloyd Sherman, no fellow would consider it martyrdom to escort the most popular debutante of the season.

LLOYD: (Astonished) Why, Rob, I believe that’s the first time evah you have paid me a compliment.

ROB: Oh, I’m just quoting an enthusiastic admirer of yours. But my offer is a sincere one.

LLOYD: Very well then. I’ll hold you to it. You’ll have to go in fancy costume, of course, and you know how you hate to dress up so.

ROB: (Reluctantly) I hadn’t considered that, but it’s all right. I die game, and I’m determined to see you through this. You can decide what I should go as.

LLOYD: I think a big ol’ black beah would be most in keeping if you’re going to glowah and growl the way you did a moment ago. (Passes him a bowl of popcorn) Heah, maybe some popcawn with a little salt and buttah will improve yo’ah tempah.

ROB: (Teasing) That won’t take more than a smile from you to fix.

-The Little Colonel’s Knight Comes Riding, Annie Fellows Johnston
‘Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,
I, sometime call’d the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.
I loved you and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death...
Pray for my soul, Sir Launcelot,
As thou art a knight peerless.’

Thus he read;
And ever in the reading lords and dames
Wept, looking often from his face who read
To hers which lay so silent...

Then freely spoke Sir Launcelot to them all:
‘My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear,
Know that for this most gentle maiden’s death
Right heavy am I; for good she was and true,
But loved me with a love beyond all love
In women...
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave
No cause, not willingly, for such a love...
I left her and I bade her no farewell...
Fair she was, my King,
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be,
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye,
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart -
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.’

‘Free love, so bound, were freest,’ said the King.
‘Let love be free; free love is for the best:
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death,
What should be best, if not so pure a love
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee
She fail’d to bind, tho’ being, as I think,
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.’

And Launcelot answer’d nothing, but he went...
Sat by the river in a cove... and said
Low in himself: ‘Ah, simple heart and sweet,
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love
Far tenderer than my Queen’s. Pray for thy soul?
Ay, that will I. Farewell too - now at last -
Farewell, fair lily...

-Launcelot and Elaine, Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
Courtesy wins woman all as well as valour may, but he that chooses both is perfect.

-Lord Alfred Tennyson
None shall affright, no harm may come to her,
Whom I have set there in that lofty home:
Love’s eye is sleepless; I could feel the stir
E’en of God’s cohorts, if they chanced to come.
I am her shield; I would that I might prove
How dear I hold the lady of my love.

-Gilbert Parker
I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest - blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
When twilight dews are falling soft

Upon the rosy sea, love,

I watch the star, whose beam so oft

Has lighted me to thee, love.

And thou, too, on that orb so dear,

Dost often gaze at even,

And think, tho' lost for ever here,

Thou'lt yet be mine in heaven.

-Thomas Moore, When Twilight
She turned to meet Jack Austin’s astonished and delighted gaze, and was amazed to feel the throb her heart gave. Ah! The work at the office, the community of interest, the real every-day spirit of living – all seemed to come back to her with Jack Austin’s face. Almost without knowing it, her hand was on his arm, and they were walking off together into the ballroom. She waltzed as a Southern girl can, but how had he divined it?
"This is what I call luck!" he murmured, as they threaded through the crowd again to a nook by the stairway, behind the palms. "I was getting absolutely moony for you this evening. Why didn’t you let me know that you were coming here, of all places? We’ve lost two precious hours, and I’ve got something to tell you."
"You always have," she retorted, joyously, "and it never amounts to anything."
"It does this time." He looked at her with a cool intentness, under which her cheeks reddened. "I hope you’ve had enough of your old friends, if they’re like the doting idiot I took you from! Margaret, why have you tried to hide yourself all the time we’ve worked together? I’ve had my glimpses, but now I’ve found you out for good. Underneath your demure business mask, dearest lady, you’re frivolously young!"
She laughed and said with a whimsical pathos:
"I know it, but I’m ashamed of it. And you mustn’t call me Margaret – you are younger than I."
"Am I? I don’t believe it. I have ten years the advantage in looks and experience. What difference does a year or two either way make? We’re neither of us in our teens. But we suit each other." He drew a long breath. "How we suit each other!"
"That is your fancy," she flashed back.
"Perhaps," he answered quietly. "I take very strong fancies sometimes. I have one now that I care for you, and that you care for me – whether you know it or not. I’ve a fancy to have a wife who is brave and sweet and beautiful, and named Margaret. I’ve a fancy that I should like to work for her, and scrimp and save to buy her pretty things. I’ve a fancy that the dearest girl in the world is lonely, in spite of all her bravery." He stopped, and his quick hand pressed hers furtively as he turned with careless manner to defend her from the observation of the outer world. "Margaret – Margaret, darling! You mustn’t cry – not till I can put my arms around you!"

-In Cinderella’s Shoes, Mary Stewart Cutting
How fragile the thread...
Two souls which touch each other... without meeting!

-Emily Dickenson
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind...

-William Wordsworth
DR. CURIE: Goodbye, mademoiselle… And may I say your conversation is scintillating. You know I…I’ve always believed that people of science should be alone and have only their equipment for companions but…

MARIE: But yes, monsieur. When one is alone and swallowed up in study, one lives to the fullest… Goodbye, monsieur.

He walks away, turns and watches her go into her house. He walks back and forth, occasionally looking up to the house. Finally, after many long thoughtful moments, he bursts up the stairs.

DR. CURIE: (Calling out to her) Marie! Marie!

MARIE re-appears.

MARIE: What is it, monsieur? Is there anything wrong?

DR. CURIE: I find it impossible for you to leave Paris. (She tries to interrupt but he continues)…No, please…During these past weeks, I’ve found everything very confusing. But now, suddenly, something has become very clear to me… I’m helpful to you in the laboratory, am I not? You've found my suggestions valuable, have you not?

MARIE: Yes, of course.

DR. CURIE: Well then, now…whereas I am inclined to be nervous and impatient, you are quite the opposite - calm and tenacious. It’s an excellent combination. I might compare it with the chemical formulae NaCl – sodium chloride. It’s a stable, necessary compound. So if we marry on this basis, our marriage would always be the same; the temperature would be the same; the composition would be the same. There would be no distractions, no fluctuations; none of the uncertainties and emotions of love.

MARIE: But…

DR. CURIE: (Waving her off) Uh Uh Uh! I know how you feel about love - about men, I mean, and I respect that feeling – it’s also my conviction. For the scientist there is no time for love. I have always believed science and marriage to be incompatible. But in our case, it would be a wonderful collaboration – a wonderful collaboration. Do you feel that?

MARIE: (Quietly) I feel that.

DR. CURIE: (Moving slowly closer to her) It would be a very fine thing, I believe, to pass our lives together with our common scientific dream; to work constantly in our search; and any discovery that we should make, would deepen the friendship we already have for each other and increase the respect we mutually feel.

MARIE: I could imagine no respect or friendship greater than I have for you now. I could imagine no future so full of promise as the one you offer.

DR. CURIE: Then I suggest you stay on in Paris, with me.

MARIE: I believe you are right.

DR. CURIE: (He stands awkwardly for a moment) Then we are engaged.

MARIE: (Nods her head) We are engaged.

DR. CURIE: Thank you. Goodnight mademoiselle. (He walks away but suddenly turns as if remembering something. He walks over to her) I’m sorry. (He respectfully leans over and kisses her on the forehead, then leaves)

-Adapted from Madame Curie, A Biography by Eve Curie
Thou art all the world
To this heart of mine;
Life, and its tender hopes
Are thine - and only thine.

-Emily Dickenson
GILBERT: (Coming down the path) What are you thinking of, Anne?

ANNE: (Dreamily) Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving...how everything has changed. I shall miss my visits to Echo Lodge. How lonely it already looks with the shutters all closed. (With a sigh) So passes the glory of this world.

GILBERT: Do I detect a note of regret?

ANNE: No, not that. I couldn't be happier for them.

GILBERT: A little lonesome, then?

ANNE: (Taking her last look at the cottage) Oh, why do things have to change?

GILBERT: Things don't change, Anne. We simply outgrow them just as Miss Lavender outgrew her tea parties with imaginary guests and found something more substantial and real. Change is a sign pointing to a greater reality beyond it.

ANNE: It is beautiful to think how everything has turned out...how Miss Lavender and Mr. Irving have come together again after all the years of separation and misunderstanding.

GILBERT: (Looking steadily at her uplifted face) Yes, it's beautiful, but wouldn't it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been no separation or misunderstanding ...if they had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other? (He reaches for her hands and pulls her up still holding her hands in his) Shall we then sail over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of fairy lands forlorn, where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot... to the land of Heart's Desire?

-Adapted from Anne of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery
To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.

-Karen Sund
What happened afterward was all a sort of golden haze to Lloyd, that ended in a glorious never-to-be-forgotten moment. They were walking together under the locusts. They stopped at the old measuring tree, and Rob dropped the light tone in which he had been jesting, and his face grew earnest.
“It’s no use trying any longer, Lloyd. I can’t give you up. It’s too much for me.” He took a step nearer. “Dear, isn’t there anything I could do to make myself worthier in your sight? Set me a task? I’d go to the world’s end to do it!”
She leaned against the trunk of the old locust, tracing the outline of the four-leaf clover he had cut there when they were children.
“Yes, you can bring me the diamond leaf. By that token you’d prove that you were not only a true knight, but that all these yeahs, you’ve been my prince in disguise.”
He smiled ruefully, thinking she had purposely set him a hopeless task. They had read the legend together years before, and he knew full well that Abdallah found the diamond leaf of happiness only in Paradise, but he took out his watch and opened the back of it, saying hopefully:
“My lucky charm has never failed me yet. How long will you give me to find it?”
She held out her hand for the four-leaf clover she had given him so many years ago, but as he took it from the back of his watch, the dry leaves crumbled, and only one fell unbroken into her palm.
“My talisman has failed me when I needed it most!” he said bitterly, but Lloyd lifted her eyes shyly.
“No, don’t you see? This is the fo’th leaf. You have brought me what I asked for.”
For an instant he stood, incredulous with joy, then grasped the hand that closed over the clover.
“And my shoulders really fit your royal mantle now, dear? You are sure?”
She looked up at him then, not a doubt in her trusting face as she slowly made answer.
“Yes, Rob, ‘as the falcom’s feathahs fit the falcon!’”
And then the old locusts, looking down on the ending of a story that they had watched from its beginning, stopped their swaying for a space, with a soft “Sh!” each to each as one lays finger on lip in holy places.

-The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding, Annie Fellows Johnston
When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden...

-Kahlil Gibran
Where true Love burns

Desire is Love's pure flame.

It is the reflex of our earthly frame,

That takes its meaning from the nobler part,

And but translates the language of the heart.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
BROWNING: Miss Barrett, do you remember the first letter I wrote to you?

ELIZABETH: (Joyfully) Yes! It was a wonderful letter.

BROWNING: You may have thought I dashed it off in a fit of white-hot enthusiasm over your poems. I didn't. I weighed every word of every sentence. And of one sentence in particular - this sentence: "I love your books with all my heart - and I love you too." You remember?

ELIZABETH: Yes - and I thought it charmingly impulsive of you!

BROWNING: (Exhuberantly impatient) But I tell you there was nothing impulsive about it. That sentence was as deeply felt and anxiously thought over as any sentence I've ever written.

ELIZABETH: I hope I have many readers like you ! It's wonderful to think I may have good friends all the world over whom I have never seen or heard of.

BROWNING: (Impatient) I want something more substantial from you than that. (Insistent) I am not speaking of friendship, but of love. (ELIZABETH is about to make a smiling rejoinder) No, it's quite useless your trying to put aside the word with a smile and a jest. I said love - and I mean love.

ELIZABETH: But, Mr. Browning...

BROWNING: (Swiftly interrupting her) I'm neither mad nor morbidly impressionable - I'm as sane and level-headed as any man alive. Yet all these months, since first I read your poems, I've been haunted by you. And to-day you are the centre of my life.

ELIZABETH: (Very gravely) If I were to take you seriously, Mr. Browning, it would, of course, mean the finish of a friendship that promises...

BROWNING: (Swiftly insistent) Why?

ELIZABETH: You know very well that love, in the sense you - you use the word, has no place, and can have no place, in my life.

BROWNING: Why?

ELIZABETH: As I told you before, I am a dying woman.

BROWNING: (Passionately) I refuse to believe it! For if that were so, God would be callous, and I know that He's compassionate - and life would be dark and evil, and I know that it's good. You must never say such a thing, again. 1 forbid you to.

ELIZABETH: Forbid, Mr. Browning?

BROWNING: Yes - forbid! Isn't it only fair that if you forbid bid me to speak of you as I feel, and I accept your orders, as I must, that I should be allowed a little forbidding as well?

ELIZABETH: Yes, but...

BROWNING: (Breaking in with sudden gaiety) Dear Miss Barrett, what a splendid beginning to our friendship! We have known each other a bare half hour and yet we've talked intimately of art and life and death and love, and we've ordered each other about, and we've almost quarrelled! Could anything be happier and more promising?...

-Adapted from The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolph Besier
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Were you not to me in that dim beginning a joy behind all joys, a life added to and transforming mine... the good I choose from all the possible gifts of God on this earth, for which I seemed to have lived...

-Robert Browning to Elizabeth Browning
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