"It is better to be the hammer than the anvil." — Emily Dickinson

We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came.

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.