I know now the purpose of the divine faculty of music; the angels invented it to utter love.

Ah, my Melchior, to have genius and to have beauty is too much; a man should be made to choose between them at his birth.
When I think of the treasures of tenderness and affection which you have given me, and more especially for the last month, I ask myself if I dream.

No, but you hide some mystery; what woman can yield you up to me and not die?
Ah! jealousy has entered my heart with love,--love in which I could not have believed.

How could I have imagined so mighty a conflagration?
And now--strange and inconceivable revulsion!--I would rather you were ugly.
What follies I committed after I came home! The yellow dahlias reminded me of your waistcoat, the white roses were my loving friends; I bowed to them with a look that belonged to you, like all that is of me.

The very color of the gloves, moulded to hands of a gentleman, your step along the nave,--all, all, is so printed on my memory that sixty years hence I shall see the veriest trifles of this day of days,--the color of the atmosphere, the ray of sunshine that flickered on a certain pillar; I shall hear the prayer your step interrupted; I shall inhale the incense of the altar; forever I shall feel above our heads the priestly hands that blessed us both as you passed by me at the closing benediction.