Cosette

In the place she was called the Lark, only the poor Lark never sang.

The doll is one of the most imperious necessities, and at the same time one of the most charming instincts of  female childhood.  To care for, to clothe, to adorn, to dress, to undress, to dress over again, to teach, to scold a little, to rock, to cuddle, to put to sleep, to imagine that something is someone - all the future of woman is here.  The child becomes a little girl, the little girl becomes a big girl, the big girl becomes a woman.  The first baby takes the place of the last doll.

At certain hours, everything seems impossible; at other hours everything appears easy;  Jean Valjean was in one of those happy hours.  To be in France, to be in England, what did it matter, if he had Cosette with him?  Cosette was his nation.

Words of Wisdom in Love by Victor Hugo

"How beautiful she is!" he said in dismay.  "What is to become of me?"  Here in fact is the difference between his tenderness and the tenderness of a mother.  What he saw with anguish, a mother would have seen with delight. 

Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives.  They wound themselves with it.

And then, oddly enough, the first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness.  This is surprising, and yet nothing is more natural.  It is the two sexes tending to unite, and each acquiring the qualities of the other.  

As he was in Heaven, it was quite natural that he should forget the earth.  Alas!  who has not experienced all these things?  why comes there an hour when we leave this azure, and why does life continue afterwards?

"In my Life/A Heart Full of Love"

from the 25th Anniversary Concert  Nick Jonas plays Marius and can not live up to Michael Ball, but I can appreciate how much younger the story feels with this cast, which is true to the novel.  I am very impressed with Katie Hall,  her expressions and her high notes.