This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Isn't there a picture that belongs in the original frame? Life [one suspects she means spiritual life] cannot die. You can explode its dynamism [the physical body] but you cannot dissipate its energy. If you suffer where life suffered, the essence that once filled the frame will take from you something to dramatize and live again.
Eternal | Experience | Knowledge | Prediction |
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, as doth the blushing discontented sun from out the fiery portal of the east.
Heart |
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote; spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, and as a bed I'll take them, and there lie.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday among the fields above the sea, among the winds at play.
Old |
Think of the inconvenience of vanishing as it were from your friends and, correspondents three times in one's natural life.
There was a reason for the cost of those perfectly plain black dresses.
Nothing |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
She died--this was the way she died; and when her breath was done, took up her simple wardrobe and started for the sun. Her little figure at the gate the angels must have spied, since I could never find her upon the mortal side.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails....Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye; much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority in this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I measure every Grief I meet with narrow, probing, Eyes; I wonder if It weighs like Mine, or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long, or did it just begin? I could not tell the Date of Mine, it feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, and if They have to try, and whether, could They choose between, it would not be, to die. I note that Some -- gone patient long -- At length, renew their smile. An imitation of a Light that has so little Oil. I wonder if when Years have piled, some Thousands -- on the Harm of early hurt -- if such a lapse could give them any Balm; or would they go on aching still through Centuries above, enlightened to a larger Pain by Contrast with the Love. The Grieved are many, I am told; the reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, and only nails the eyes. There's Grief of Want and Grief of Cold, -- a sort they call Despair; there's Banishment from native Eyes, in sight of Native Air. And though I may not guess the kind correctly, yet to me a piercing Comfort it affords in passing Calvary, to note the fashions of the Cross, and how they're mostly worn, still fascinated to presume that Some are like My Own.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! How can I bear it? was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
They might not need me; but they might. I'll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months - many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms. I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor - the middle one, gray, and half buried in heath - Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss, creeping up its foot - Heathcliff's still bare. I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Afraid? No! he replied. I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reached - and soon - because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfillment. My confessions have not reviewed me; but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humor which I show. Oh God! It is a long fight; I wish it were over!