Jane Welsh Carlyle
Jane Welsh Carlyle
Jane Welsh Carlylewas the wife of essayist Thomas Carlyle and has been cited as the reason for his fame and fortune. She was most notable as a letter-writer. In 1973, G.B. Tennyson described her as...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth14 January 1801
compared love
But what are friends? What is a husband, even, compared with one's Mother? Of her love, one is always so sure! It is the only love that nothing - not even misconduct on our part - can take away from us.
assign hour pleased providence thankless
Indeed, I should be very stupid or very thankless if I did not congratulate myself every hour of the day on the lot which it has pleased Providence to assign me. My Husband is so kind! So, in all respects, after my own heart!
feels time
One feels as if it could never, never be less. And yet all griefs, when there is no bitterness in them, are soothed down by time.
bearing best chiefly difference far manner
'On earth the living have much to bear;' the difference is chiefly in the manner of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best.
beast doubt feels individual mere mysterious physically power stronger tremble wild
Does not a man physically tremble under the mere look of a wild beast or fellow-man that is stronger than himself? Does not a woman redden all over when she feels her lover's eyes on her? How then should one doubt the mysterious power of one individual over another?
characters declare female kitten lives rather tearing wearing
I declare I would rather be a kitten and cry, 'Mew!' than live as I see many of my female acquaintances do, tearing each other's characters to pieces, and wearing out their lives in vanity and vexation of spirit.
accustomed among cannot disguise fear grown laughed lived people refrain shell snail understand
I have lived so long among people who do not understand me, been so long accustomed to refrain and disguise myself for fear of being laughed at, that I have grown as difficult to come at as a snail in a shell; and what is worse, I cannot come out of my shell when I wish it.
favour injustice accepting
When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
pride men common-sense
The longer I live, the more I am certified that men, in all that relates to their own health, have not common sense! whether it be their pride, or their impatience, or their obstinancy, or their ingrained spirit of contradiction, that stupefies and misleads them, the result is always a certain amount of idiocy, or distraction in their dealings with their own bodies! ... either by their wild impatience of bodily suffering, and the exaggerated moan they make over it, or else by their reckless defiance of it, and neglect of every dictate of prudence!
grief bitterness
all griefs, when there is no bitterness in them, are soothed down by time.
long-ago long laziness
the less one does, as I long ago observed, the less one can find time to do.
personality persons
I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for.
death bereavement trying
Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement.
wife people infidelity
People who are so dreadfully "devoted" to their wives are so apt, from mere habit, to get devoted to other people's wives as well.