Varina Davis Quotes

“I gave the best and all my life to a girdled tree. It was live oak, and was good for any purpose, except for blossom and fruit, and I am not willing for Belle to be content with anything less than the whole of a man's heart.

[Varina Davis, Letter to a friend, advising against his daughter Belle marrying a widower]”
― Erik Larson, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War