All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.
Charlotte BronteRead
I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I'm afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep emotional connection between two people, suggesting that their bond is as vital as a lifeline.
In this quote, Charlotte Bronte beautifully articulates the profound interconnection between two individuals in love. She likens their relationship to a cord that ties them together, suggesting that if one were to depart, the other would feel an unbearable loss, like a wound. This metaphor emphasizes the intensity of their emotional bond and the fear of separation that often accompanies deep love.
In practice
In a heartfelt letter to a friend discussing the complexities of a romantic relationship.
All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.
Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
Peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star.
For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shadows of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature - shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my identity - but slow degrees I became a frequenter of this straight narrow path.
But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?-I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.-Where is God? What is God?-My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.
Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.
How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with LOVE, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts.
Bird and bear and hare and fish, give my love her fondest wish.
I don't need the stars in the night I found my treasure All I need is you by my side so shine forever
Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side.
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