The Mill on the Floss (World's Classics)

by George Eliot

Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives.

Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love.

Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little world into just what she should like it to be. Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took her opium.

the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,–very much as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.

The children were used to hear themselves talked of as freely as if they were birds,

What was it, he wondered, that made Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection.

They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had forever closed behind them.

There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth, when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no superadded life in the life of others; though we who looked on think lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the future lightened the blind sufferer's present.

"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I want. That is pain to me, and always will be pain, until my faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many other things I long for,"–here Philip hesitated a little, and then said,–"things that other men have, and that will always be denied me. My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not have lived."

There was bitterness to him in the perception that Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she was a child.

Philip's gaze after her remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still.

He would be her guardian angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her sake–except not seeing her.

So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.

I think of too many things,–sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for classic literature, and mediæval literature, and modern literature; I flutter all ways, and fly in none."

"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes, there is one thing,–a passion answers as well as a faculty."

"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the clouds that promises us a bright heaven once more.

But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this moment liquid and beautiful with beseeching love.

Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them.

You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!"

"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in the world."

Her heart bled for Philip; she went on recalling the insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and tighten her fingers on her palm.

There is a very pleasant light in Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression.

It was very charming to be taken care of in that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one's self.

the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

confidences are sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere.

He would make himself disagreeable to her, quarrel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her? Was it possible to quarrel with a creature who had such eyes,–defying and deprecating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and beseeching,–full of delicious opposites? To see such a creature subdued by love for one would be a lot worth having–to another man.

But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity,–strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,–prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth.

You have been to my affections what light, what color is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness.

Perhaps they tell you I've been 'travelling.' My body has been dragged about somewhere; but I have never travelled from the hideous place where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage to find you gone.