I believe there are few who have not, even in their gladdest hours, felt how nearly gaiety and sadness are allied; a shadow steals over the spirits, like a cloud over the moon, soft and subduing, perhaps transitory, but not the less dark for the moment.
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXVI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 303