“It was written at the request of my children, and for their amusement, on Christmas Eve, 1822.”

A modest account of the poem’s origin as a family Christmas entertainment · Preface to Poems (1844)

• Childhood
• Family
• Joy

“He is very fond of ladies' society.”

A father's brief observation on his son's tastes · Letter to Anna Harte, Glasgow, October 30, 1884

• Character
• Family

“The elements of a nation’s weakness must ever be found at the hearthstone.”

She argues that the health of a nation ultimately begins within its homes and families. · Speech, Woman's Political Future, 1893

• Family
• Home
• Society

“I think he is getting a little bored here, with no company to speak of.”

On his son's dull stay in Glasgow · Letter to Anna Harte, Glasgow, October 30, 1884

• Family
• Home

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.”

A sharp observation on inheritance and gender · Play, The Importance of Being Earnest

• Family
• Tragedy
• Women

“I try to believe that my loss is offset by some advantage to him.”

Consoling himself over his son's absence · Letter to his wife, Glasgow, September 16, 1884

• Consolation
• Family

“For thirty years I have gone straight to her bedside as soon as I arose in the morning, and wherever she is, I am sure she wants me now.”

Expressing a lifetime of habitual devotion to her sister and faith in their continuing bond · Letter to Mrs. Croly, 1873

• Devotion
• Family
• Loss

“Never, in all my early childhood, did anyone address to me the affecting preamble: Once upon a time.”

A remembered deprivation of story and play in a severely religious upbringing · Father and Son

• Childhood
• Family
• Imagination

“Of pure Pennsylvania stock.”

She corrected the New Jersey birthplace with family loyalty to Pennsylvania lineage · Spoken protest, as often reported

• America
• Family
• Identity

“I would very much like to see you.”

Original: Hélas je voudrais bien te voir. — The simple expression reveals a rare moment of tenderness in Rimbaud’s late correspondence. · Letter to Isabelle Rimbaud, 17 June 1891 (French)

• Affection
• Family
• Longing

“We can not drain this bitter cup at one draught and then go on our way as though it had never been.”

Acknowledging that grief cannot simply be completed and left behind · Letter to her youngest brother, 1849

• Family
• Grief
• Sorrow

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”

Tracing the typical progression of filial feeling · Play, A Woman of No Importance

• Children
• Family
• Judgement

“Say to Frankie that of course I am satisfied with his engagement with Barrett. He must not let it slip in any case.”

Fatherly encouragement about a son's acting engagement · Postscript to letter to Anna Harte, Glasgow, September 5, 1884

• Advice
• Family

“I learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man.”

Reflecting on the different burdens of grief he observed within domestic life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

• Courage
• Family
• Grief

“Domestic dissension is the sacrilege of the heart.”

Condemning conflict that destroys the security of family affection · Landoniana

• Family
• Home
• Love

“The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.”

Arguing that ordinary family lives can illuminate social history more vividly than abstraction · Prose, The Doctor

• Family
• History
• Society

“It will never leave me while I live. He is so near me often …”

Expressing the enduring presence of her son Harry three years after his death · Letter to Mrs Kappey, August 1919

• Family
• Grief
• Memory

“For these my mother laboured night and day as none of us were strong enough to provide for our own wants.”

Records the relentless work his mother undertook for her family · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Family
• Motherhood
• Work

“Don't let this kill you. I have run away.”

The brief note left when she fled her first marriage for Horace Wylie · Letter to her mother, December 1910

• Family
• Freedom
• Rebellion

“A mother is a mother still; the holiest thing alive.”

An unadorned affirmation of maternal sanctity · The Friend, No. 6, 1809

• Family
• Holiness
• Motherhood

“Begin to-day, at home. Be more tolerant of the faults of the other members of your household.”

Making moral improvement practical by beginning with family life · Essay, Preparation

• Family
• Growth
• Tolerance

“It seems to me that a cord stretches from Alice’s heart to mine; nothing can hurt her that does not hurt me.”

Expressing the extraordinary emotional bond between the two sisters · A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary, 1873

• Affection
• Connection
• Family

“I am now (so to speak) in God's hands. Getting the four children fitted out for school and paying a quarter's tuition in advance has reduced me to a condition of financial weakness.”

A characteristically comic description of financial anxiety and family responsibility. · Letter to Mr. Cowen, 13 November 1889

• Family
• Humour
• Money

“My God! I have often regretted that I was born! I have often wished to fall back even into nothingness, rather than advance through so many falsehoods, so many sufferings, and so many successive losses, towards that loss of ourselves which we call death!”

Original: Mon Dieu! J'ai souvent regretté d'être né! J'ai souvent souhaité retomber même dans le néant, plutôt que d'avancer à travers tant de mensonges, tant de souffrances et tant de pertes successives, vers cette perte de nous-mêmes que nous appelons la mort! — An honest cry of existential weariness that still affirms the value of family bonds and simple affections. · Les Confidences, 1849 (French)

• Death
• Family
• Suffering