I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
Emily BronteRead
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain; Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again?
Interpretation
The quote expresses the struggle between savoring beautiful memories and the pain that accompanies them.
In this poignant reflection, the speaker battles with the temptation to dwell on cherished memories that bring both pleasure and pain. The 'divinest anguish' of love offers such profound emotions that it creates a hesitance to return to a life devoid of that depth of feeling. This captures the complexity of love and memory, suggesting that such moments are invaluable, yet bittersweet.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the bittersweet nature of love and loss.
I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never laid down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed, and listened. I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, 'till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompts to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavors to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.
I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that not because he's handsome Nelly but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.
Now I am going to reveal to you something which is very pure, a totally white thought. It is always in my heart; it blooms at each of my steps... The Dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough... I, then, it is amorously that I dance: to poems, to music but now I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul.
He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.
I live my life with love. I live my life with compassion. I live my life hoping the best for absolutely everyone, no matter how they feel about me. And when you live that way, it's amazing how beautiful every day can be.
I wish I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.
So the lover must struggle for words.
Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.
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