George Eliot and Thomas Hardy: A Contrast

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M. Kennerley, 1917 - 174 pages

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Page 162 - All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence ; ripen, fall and cease : Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
Page 66 - She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Page 72 - 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 103 - There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe , when I first knew him , he never thought of doing anything cruel or base.
Page 145 - 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 118 - Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly : you and I may have sent some of our breath toward infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions : or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance.
Page 118 - For in the multitude of .middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average, and fit to be packed by the gross...
Page 51 - It was a thousand pities, indeed; it was impossible for even an enemy to feel otherwise on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her flower-like mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor blue nor...
Page 122 - We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love; Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove. Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea; Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee.
Page 73 - A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills : to know that high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread, and feel the chill air, and watch through darkness. It is not true that love makes all things easy: it makes us choose what is difficult.

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