There was something tender and gentle about our love, something a little shy, that was like early spring.

A man in the jungle at night, as someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows damn well it's a lion.

What we did see was that jealousy is fear: it can corrode even if quite baseless.

Whatever one of us asked the other to do - it was assumed the asker would weigh all the consequences - the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night'. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.

That death, so full of suffering for us both, suffering that still overwhelmed my life, was yet a severe mercy. A mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love.

Goodness & love are as real as their terrible opposites, and, in truth, far more real, though I say this mindful of the enormous evils... But love is the final reality; and anyone who does not understand this, be he writer or sage, is a man flawed of wisdom.