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e8890db
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I want that sort of thing -- not ideas, you know, but a way of putting them.
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George Eliot |
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b2030d6
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As to his religious notions--why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man who will bring the arsenic, and don't mind about his incantations." "Very"
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George Eliot |
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e3e1504
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Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices. Not that it was one of those barren parishes lying on the outskirts of civilization--inhabited by meagre sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds: on the contrary, it lay in the rich central plain of what we are pleased to call Merry England, and
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George Eliot |
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41d7059
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Contented speckled hens, industriously scratching for the rarely-found corn, may sometimes do more for a sick heart than a grove of nightingales; there is something irresistibly calming in the unsentimental cheeriness of top-knotted pullets, unpetted sheep-dogs, and patient cart-horses enjoying a drink of muddy water.
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George Eliot |
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2236b7e
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Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,-she was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts ..
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George Eliot |
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e10611c
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There's Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among 'em. I read
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George Eliot |
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fcd6231
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People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes;
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George Eliot |
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bf109e9
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Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children.
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George Eliot |
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c09fa9d
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Three nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible.
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George Eliot |
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64f28f5
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he was a likable man: sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends.
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George Eliot |
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fa6e74d
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They are always wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle things after their own taste." Evidently"
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George Eliot |
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f18e19e
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Snuff, the brown spaniel, who had placed herself in front of him, and had been watching him for some time, now jumped up in impatience for the expected caress. But Godfrey thrust her away without looking at her, and left the room, followed humbly by the unresenting Snuff--perhaps because she saw no other career open to her.
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George Eliot |
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5333b14
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I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest -- I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much. But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hear him preach.
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George Eliot |
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bd0a386
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I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a beery and bungling sort, and to..
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George Eliot |
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0d94f9c
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But that Herschel, for example, who "broke the barriers of the heavens"-- did he not once play a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his garments than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small temptatio..
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George Eliot |
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5244b3d
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O Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being "the freshest modern" instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor,-that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else?"
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George Eliot |
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92ba579
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The betrothed bride must see her future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.
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George Eliot |
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ff52dad
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Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate than the turn of Miss Brooke's mind, or to Miss Brooke than the qualities of the woman who had attracted this young surgeon. But any one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced neig..
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George Eliot |
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442595a
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But many of these misdeeds were like the subtle muscular movements which are not taken account of in the consciousness, though they bring about the end that we fix our mind on and desire.
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George Eliot |
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0d15b88
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that living bodies, fundamentally considered, are not associations of organs which can be understood by studying them first apart, and then as it were federally; but must be regarded as consisting of certain primary webs or tissues, out of which the various organs -- brain, heart, lungs, and so on -- are compacted, as the various accommodations of a house are built up in various proportions of wood, iron, stone, brick, zinc, and the rest, e..
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George Eliot |
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f62fdf4
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We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts -- not to hurt others."
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George Eliot |
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516d300
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Each remembered thing in the room was disenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency, till her wandering gaze came to the group of miniatures, and there at last she saw something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was the miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunate marriage -- of Will Ladislaw's grandmother. Dorothea could fancy that it was alive now -- the delicate woman's face which yet had a heads..
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George Eliot |
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dde86a8
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As to his religious notions--why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.
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George Eliot |
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17200ad
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Mr. Casaubon had no second attack of equal severity with the first, and in a few days began to recover his usual condition. But Lydgate seemed to think the case worth a great deal of attention. He not only used his stethoscope (which had not become a matter of course in practice at that time), but sat quietly by his patient and watched him. To Mr. Casaubon's questions about himself, he replied that the source of the illness was the common e..
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George Eliot |
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dd773e8
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In this stupid world, most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set.
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George Eliot |
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2bdf14b
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Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.
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ignorance
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George Eliot |
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c9f1a09
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Also, the high standard held up to the public mind by the College of which which gave its peculiar sanction to the expensive and highly rarefied medical instruction obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, did not hinder quackery from having an excellent time of it; for since professional practice chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs, the public inferred that it might be better off with more drugs still, if they could only b..
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George Eliot |
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72fdc76
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We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts -- not to hurt others. "
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George Eliot |
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ce162b2
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The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my test-which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous upholder of the wrong.
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George Eliot |
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adf45a6
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Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond, with mild gravity. "Only the wrong sort. All choice of words is slang. It marks a class." "There is correct English: that is not slang." "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets."
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George Eliot |
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ff32648
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Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stone right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction how many lengths of his sti..
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mill-on-the-floss
student
teachers
teaching
students
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George Eliot |
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fe6c9e6
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Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations.
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George Eliot |
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c0cfb4c
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The story can be told without many words.
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George Eliot |
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de094c5
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Ladislaw lingering behind while Naumann had gone into the Hall of Statues where he again saw Dorothea, and saw her in that brooding abstraction which made her pose remarkable. She did not really see the streak of sunlight on the floor more than she saw the statues: she was inwardly seeing the light of years to come in her own home and over the English fields and elms and hedge-bordered highroads; and feeling that the way in which they might..
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George Eliot |
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2995b0b
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But something she yearned for by which her life might be filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer heightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but knowledge? Surely learned men kept-the only oil; and who more learned than Mr. Casaubon? Thus
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George Eliot |
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89c2159
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And yet the hope of this paradise had not been enough to save him from a course which shut him out of it forever. Instead of keeping fast hold of the strong silken rope by which Nancy would have drawn him safe to the green banks where it was easy to step firmly, he had let himself be dragged back into the mud and slime, in which it was useless to struggle. He had made his ties for himself which robbed him of all wholesome motive and were a ..
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powerful-imagery
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George Eliot |
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4106c7d
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When I married Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them.
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George Eliot |
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23662f9
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He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to Dorothea -- his last words -- his distant bow to her as he reached the door -- the sense that he was no longer there. She sank into the chair, and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions were hurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train behind it -- joy in the impr..
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George Eliot |
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d9f8bdf
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They were very bitter tears; everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to Maggie; there was no indulgence, no fondness, such as she imagined when she fashioned the world afresh in her own thoughts. In books there were people who were always agreeable or tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt; it seemed t..
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George Eliot |
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8637d5d
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A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from Rosamund's fingers, and so indeed it was, since souls live on in perpetual echoes, and to all fine expression there goes somewhere an originating activity, if it be only that of an interpreter.
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George Eliot |
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dc2fc44
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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.
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George Eliot |
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537ddde
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He yearned with a poet's yearning for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and fluctuating lights on the water which seems to breathe with a life that can shiver and mourn, be comforted and rejoice.
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George Eliot |
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93e2326
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How can you bear to be so contemptible, when others are working and striving, and there are so many things to be done-how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is useful?
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George Eliot |
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e67d80f
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you, and have no little girls' clothes to mend." "Yes," said Maggie. "It is with me as I used to think it would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad habit of being unhappy." "But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you lose that ba..
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George Eliot |