Olivia

“You were in a mood to quarrel. Please inform me when this inclination passes.

(Catherine, in a letter to Grigory Potemkin).”
― Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

“Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.”
― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

“If you mention Bella's name to me again, Gil, I am likely to do you a mischief!' Sherry warned him. 'I never cared the snap of my fingers for that wretched girl, and if you are not assured of that, ask her! Why, God save the mark, she may be a beauty, but give me my Kitten! Bella, with her airs and her graces, and her miffs, and her curst sharp tongue! No, I thank you! What's more, no man who had lived with Kitten would look twice at the Beauty!”
― Georgette Heyer, Friday's Child

“The stories are of men who, walking on the shore, hear sweet voices far away, see a soft white back turned to them, and - heedless of looming clouds and creaking winds - forget their children's hands and the click of their wives' needles, all for the sake of the half-seen face behind a tumble of gale-tossed greenish hair.”
― Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock