I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes wish you had struck me dead along with it.
Interpretation
The quote expresses profound emotional impact and vulnerability in a relationship where the speaker is affected deeply by someone else's words and presence.
In this quote, Charles Dickens articulates the powerful influence one person can have over another, particularly in the realm of love and emotional connection. The speaker acknowledges that the mere presence and words of this woman have affected him dramatically, suggesting a complex mix of admiration, anguish, and uncertainty. He reveals his internal struggle and the pain that comes from feeling deeply for someone while also grappling with the realization that they may not fully understand the depth of his feelings or the turmoil he experiences because of their influence.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a heartfelt conversation about the complexities of love.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.
Love is responsibility of an I for a You: in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling - the equality of all lovers.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
It was you I thought of all the time, I gave to them the love you did not need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs.
At 14 I discovered girls. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship.
Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.
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