theeward

Updated: May 1, 2025

So, when the physician was gone, they went to the sick lad, and the lady thus spoke: "My son, never would I have believed that thou wouldst have concealed from me any desire of thine, least of all if such it were that privation should cause thee to languish; for well assured thou shouldst have been and shouldst be, that I hold thee dear as my very self, and that whatever may be for thy contentment, even though it were scarce seemly, I would do it for thee; but, for all thou hast so done, God has shewn Himself more merciful to theeward than thyself, and, lest thou die of this malady, has given me to know its cause, which is nothing else than the excessive love which thou bearest to a young woman, be she who she may.

Giovanni Boccaccio - The Decameron, Volume I

And the Sahiba fed thee well? Who shampooed thy legs? What of the weaknesses the belly and the neck, and the beating in the ears? 'Gone all gone. Dost thou not know? 'I know nothing, but that I have not seen thee in a monkey's age. Know what? 'Strange the knowledge did not reach out to thee, when all my thoughts were theeward. 'I cannot see the face, but the voice is like a gong.

Rudyard Kipling - Kim