George EliotA thoughtful sensitive, well-balanced, biography of England's best authors. |
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acquaintance Adam Bede admiration afterwards already Amos Barton appeared artist aunt beauty Bray character child Coventry Daniel Deronda delight Dinah Dinah Morris Elizabeth Evans English evangelical eyes faith father feeling Felix Holt fellow-men feminine fiction Floss Foleshill friends G. H. Lewes genius George Eliot George Henry Lewes George Sand German Gilfil's girl give Glegg Griff House Gwendolen heart Hennell heroine humour idea imagination impression intellectual Jermola kind labour lady less letter Lewes Liggins literary literature living Maggie's manner Marian Evans Mary Ann mental Middlemarch Mill mind Mirah Miss Evans moral never novel novelist once passion perhaps person philosophical poet reading realise religious remarked Romola Rosehill says Scenes of Clerical seems Silas Marner sister social soul speaking spirit story studies sympathy things thought tion translation truth Warwickshire Westminster Review wife Wirksworth woman women writing young
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Page 214 - OH may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence : live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.
Page 135 - In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
Page 4 - May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
Page 178 - Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion.
Page 8 - These familiar flowers, these well-remembered birdnotes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows - such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them.
Page 127 - Maggie's punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one point— namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it: why, he wouldn't have minded being punished himself, if he deserved it; but, then, he never did deserve it.
Page 16 - Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.
Page 99 - ... milk ; they know one or two of those deep spiritual truths which are only to be won by long wrestling with their own sins and their own sorrows ; they have earned faith and strength so far as they have done genuine work : but the rest is dry, barren theory, blank prejudice, vague hearsay.
Page 10 - One day my brother left me in high charge, To mind the rod, while he went seeking bait, And bade me, when I saw a nearing barge, Snatch out the line, lest he should come too late. Proud of the task, I watched with all my might For one whole minute, till my eyes grew wide, Till sky and earth took on a strange new light And seemed a dream-world floating on some tide A fair pavilioned boat for me alone Bearing me onward through the vast unknown.
Page 98 - The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men ; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what ia true, feels nothing but what is exalted, and does nothing but what is graceful.