The Romantic.com

December 1847

I don’t know anything dreadful enough to liken to you – you are like a sweet forest of pleasant glades and whispering branches – where people wander on and on in its playing shadows they know not how far – and when they come near the centre of it, it is all cold and impenetrable – and when they would fain turn, lo – they are hedged with briars and thorns and cannot escape…

You are like the bright – soft – swelling – lovely fields of a high glacier covered with fresh morning snow – which is heavenly to the eye – and soft and winning on the foot – but beneath, there are winding clefts and dark places in its cold – cold ice – where men fall, and rise not again.

This was written by John Ruskin, an English writer, artist and philosopher to Effie Gray, whom he eventually married.  However, his insights were correct.  The marriage was never consummated and they divorced six years later.