...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.
Daphne Du MaurierRead
I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.
Interpretation
First love is a unique experience that carries both joy and pain, and cannot be replicated.
Daphne Du Maurier reflects on the bittersweet nature of first love, describing it as an intense and overwhelming experience likened to a fever. While it is celebrated in poetry and literature, she acknowledges that it can also bring burdens and challenges, making it a one-time event that is cherished but also relief when it is over.
In practice
During a speech about the challenges of young relationships, I might use this quote to illustrate the intensity of first love.
...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.
here was a silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate.
She had to live in this bright, red gabled house with the nurse until it was time for her to die... I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe.
We are all ghosts of yesterday, and the phantom of tomorrow awaits us alike in sunshine or in shadow, dimly perceived at times, never entirely lost.
How pleasant,' Dona said, peeling her fruit; 'the rest of us can only run away from time to time, and however much we pretend to be free, we know it is only for a little while - our hands and our feet are tied.
A familiar name on its own, however, does not carry its bearer far unless the talent is there, and the will to work.
You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for the fire and I attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty Shaken by your beauty Shaken.
Two pure souls fused into one by an impassioned love-friends, counselors-a mutual support and inspiration to each other amid life's struggles, must know the highest human happiness;-this is marriage; and this is the only cornerstone of an enduring home.
Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
But I,_x000D_ from poetry's skies,_x000D_ plunge into communism,_x000D_ because_x000D_ without it_x000D_ I feel no love.
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide.
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