Elizabeth Gaskell

“ If my words are to kill my son, they have already gone forth out of my mouth, and nought can bring them back. But I will have faith. Alice (up above) has often telled me I wanted faith, and now I will have it. They cannot--they will not kill my child, my only child. I will not be afeard. Yet oh! I am so sick with terror. But if he is to die, think ye not that I will see him again; ay! see him at his trial? When all are hating him, he shall have his poor mother near him, to give him all the comfort, eyes, and looks, and tears, and a heart that is dead to all but him, can give ”

“ Wilson's had that still, changeless look you must have often observed in the house of sickness or mourning. No particular employment going on; people watching and waiting rather than acting, unless in the more sudden and violent attacks: what little movement is going on, so noiseless and hushed; the furniture all arranged and stationary, with a view to the comfort of the afflicted; the window-blinds drawn down to keep out the disturbing variety of a sunbeam ”

“ The grave is a sure cure for an aching heart!"
She sank back in her chair, quite exhausted by the sudden effort she had made; but if they even offered to speak, she cut them short (whatever the subject might be) , with the repetition of the same words, "I shall go to Liverpool."
No more could be said, the doctor's opinion had been so undecided; Mr. Bridgnorth had given his legal voice in favour of her going, and Mary was obliged to relinquish the idea of persuading her to remain at home, if, indeed, under all the circumstances, it could be thought desirable. ”

“ Such particulars would make Sally into a Gazette Extraordinary the next morning at the workroom and were worth coming for, even if little else could be extracted from Mary.
"Why, Mary!" she began. "Where have you hidden yourself? You never showed your face all yesterday at Miss Simmonds's. You don't fancy we think any the worse of you for what's come and gone. Some on us, indeed, were a bit sorry for the poor young man, as lies stiff and cold for your sake, Mary ”

“ I can pray for him at each hard word they say against him, if I can do nought else; and he'll know what his mother is doing for him, poor lad, by the look on my face."
Still they made some look, or gesture of opposition to her wishes. She turned sharp round on Mary, the old object of her pettish attacks, and said, "Now, wench! once for all, I tell you this. HE could never guide me; and he'd sense enough not to try. What he could na do, don't you try. I shall go to Liverpool tomorrow, and find my lad, and stay with him through thick and thin ”

“ The doctor seemed to say as I liked, not as he thought."
"That's because he had no great thought on the subject, either one way or t'other," replied Job, whose contempt for medical men pretty nearly equalled his respect for lawyers. "But I'll go and welcome. I han not seen th' ould ladies since their sorrows, and it's but manners to go and ax after them. Come along." ”