As to our going on together as we were going, in a sort of friendly way, the people round us would have made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations of man and woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from the school. Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animal desire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, at least, only a secondary part, is ignored by them – the part of – who is it? – Venus Urania.
To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement.
The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.
The reason of that is,” she said eagerly, “that he goes in privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He told me so.” This supreme instance of Troy’s goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it.
I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books.
I have been looking at the marriage service in the Prayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don’t choose him. Somebody gives me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal.
The rain still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into water slightly diluted with air.
A woman may be treated with a bitterness which is sweet to her, and with a rudeness which is not offensive.
Yes,’ he said; ‘and not a dishonourable one. What held me back was just that one thing – a sense of morality that perhaps, madam, you did not give me credit for.’ The latter words were spoken with a mien and tone of pride.
This weakness of character... suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain on his unncessary life.
Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should I praise her if she doesn’t deserve it? I say exactly what I have often admired Sterne for saying in one of his letters – that neither reason nor Scripture asks us to speak nothing but good of the dead. And now, madam,’ he continued, after a short interval of thought, ‘I may, perhaps, hope that you will assist me, or rather not thwart me, in endeavouring to win the love of a young lady living about you, one in whom I am much interested already.
The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl was strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day.
Hang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions if there’s nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear, I wouldn’t either.
Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, “But I’ll shake it off. Yes, I will shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I’ll be bitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I’ll laugh in derision! – Eustacia Vye.
I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say things against me, I will not be put down!
In the middle of the porch was a vertical sun-dial, whose gnomon swayed loosely about when the wind blew, and cast its shadow hither and thither, as much as to say, ‘Here’s your fine model dial; here’s any time for any man; I am an old dial; and shiftiness is the best policy.
Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of preparation – sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge.
New love is brightest, and long love is greatest; but revived love is the tenderest thing known upon earth.
It was Wisdom in the abstract facing Folly in the concrete.
Love begins with a sense of superior discernment.