A Texas Confederate officer wrote to his wife in 1864: "I am sick of war" and of "the separation from the dearest objects of life," his wife and children, but "were the contest again just commenced I would willingly undergo it again for the sake of … our country's independence and [our children's] liberty".
The decline in apparent, if not real moral worth which her country has so rapidly undergone cannot be more forcibly shown than in the transformation of the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" into a raving priestess of havoc and destruction, vowing to reach success, though at the cost of family and friendship, and gloating over battlefields by which not one object dear to humanity has been promoted.
However, the fourth, undated, missive seems to be addressed to Johnson's dear friend (and object of his unrequited love) Hester Thrale, a discovery that could make Slopen's scholarly reputation and fortune.
As for a list of all the objects, dear reader, Ms. Lambert did not provide one.
With a combination of strong, impatient fingers and poor fine motor skills, he destroys many physical objects most dear to him.
Objects that I had held so dear I now saw as just objects.
"These disposable objects are as dear to us as hand-me-down jewelry from our great-grandparents, just because they surround us every day".
Robinson uses "old," as Ames did, to refer to people, places and objects that are dear and intimately known — including Ames himself, well into his 70s in 1956, when both novels take place.
And you, dear (female) reader, are ultimately the object of the Goldfinchers' ire.
