Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice - Vanity and Pride

Jane Austen Quote

Jane Austen - Persuasion

Jane Austen Quote - Mansfield Park

My Sneaking Tears - Mark R. Slaughter

How heavy fell the rain that day

From burdened clouds of mournful grey.

The torrent forced them stay their height -

Composure swayed by onerous might.

My skin wrung wet with icy chill

As mud embraced that sodden hill; 

But mind of mine had elsewhere gone -

'Twas clouds abandoned I was on.

The driving drops advanced their gears

To camouflage my sneaking tears -

Whence now did swell such floods of pain

To see me melt into this rain…

On equal bearing now were we: 

This rain, myself, in harmony.

Alban Berg to Helene Nahowski - Thursday - spring 1909

There is a delicate scent in my room. I have before me the second of your lovely veils, and when I press it to my face, I can almost feel the sweet warm breath from your mouth. The violets you picked for me yesterday, which nearly withered in my buttonhole, are now blooming anew, and smell soft and fresh. The cushion on the divan and the chair by the window belong to you, Helene, they have become appendages to your present. Indeed everything in my room is the same: the mirror in front of which you arranged your hair; the window I have seen you looking through so seriously (even in our gayest moments); the last pale rays of sunlight which make your hair gleam gold; the glowing fire in the stove; and then the laurel wreath, and the dear little cover on the bedside table - everything, everything is yours.

  

   And there's no wonder seeing that I myself have become so entirely your 'creation'. All my possessions and even thought are somehow a loan or gift from you. Dressing in the morning, for instance, when I get an idea for a theme, a mood, or sometimes even a single chord, at best a whole extended melody - then I always feel it has come flying in from you. It's the same with everything: if I read something out of the ordinary, with difficult parts in it, I imagine myself understanding those parts and penetrating its mysteries only through you, Helene. I mean this reading in the wildest sense. If I look at nature with the eyes of a sensitive reader, when I hear music or see paintings or - but why go on with a list of all the things which have come to life in me only through you?

  Oh, Helene, how can I live without you!

                         

                       I am completely yours

When We Two Parted - Lord Byron