And yet of what shall we speak if not our happiness?
Of our sorrows we can keep silence, but our joys we long to utter.
So Beatrice spoke of her great happiness to Antony, and told him too of her old great unhappiness and her longing for death.
"What a strange and terrible dream it has been--but thank God, we are out in the daylight at last," said Antony.

"O my little Beatrice, to think that I could have forsaken you like that! Surely if you had come and taken me by the hands and looked deep into my eyes, and called me out of the dream, I must have awakened, for, cruel as it was, the dream was but part of a greater dream, the dream of my love for you--" "But I understand it all now," he continued, "see it all.

Do you remember saying that perhaps I had never loved anything but images all my life?
It was quite true.

Since I can remember, when I thought I loved something I was sure to find sooner or later that I loved less the object itself than what I could say about it, and when I had said something beautiful, something I could remember and say over and over to myself, I cared little if the object were removed.

The spiritual essence of it seemed to have passed over into my words, and I loved the reincarnation best.