Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together;”
- Source
- A Life for a Life
- Date
- 1859
Meaning of “Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe…”
Craik’s narrator describes intimate trust as the freedom to speak imperfectly and honestly without constant self-protection because the listener will receive the whole person with care.
Where does it come from?
A Life for a Life, Project Gutenberg #48482. The passage belongs to the first-person narrator’s reflection after an unusually candid conversation with Doctor Urquhart; it is literary characterization of trusted friendship, not a clinical definition of emotional safety.