Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door by which they may be entered. The front-door is in the street. Some keep it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked, some, bolted, - with a chain that will let you peep in, but not get in; and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This front door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room and this into the interior apartments. The side-door opens at once to the sacred chambers.
There is almost always at least one key to this side-door. This is carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, often, but by no means so universally have duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right to one; alas if none is given with it.
-Oliver Wendel Holmes
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