Enclosing its own secrets

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that in every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest to it!-–Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist

I usually go for much shorter quotes, but I wanted to share this quote because it's stuck with me for a long time now. And oddly enough, it's what came to mind when I first saw this lonely old, dilapidated farmhouse -- if only these walls could talk! Anytime I fly into Chicago, or any city for that matter, I look out and think about this quote from Dickens. And I usually find myself saying a prayer for the families in all the little houses far below -- each enclosing its own secrets, each heart with its own joys and pains, hopes and fears. And I look around the plane and realize that the same is true of every other passenger I see. There's something about this quote that brings out tenderness....