Middlemarch

by George Eliot

Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there.

It had seemed to him as if they were like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other’s presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning.

what secular avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could not get him an “appointment”) which was at once gentlemanly, lucrative and to be followed without special knowledge?

It seemed to Fred that if Mr Farebrother had had a beak and talons instead of his very capable tongue, his mode of attack could hardly be more cruel.

“I feel convinced that his conduct has not been guilty: I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbours think they are,”

“character is not cut in marble – it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.”

“Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead than I would touch any other woman’s living.”

He was in a state of uncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his should condemn him to a new distance from her, and Dorothea was afraid of her own emotion. She looked as if there were a spell upon her, keeping her motionless and hindering her from unclasping her hands, while some intense, grave yearning was imprisoned within her eyes.

While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other – and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down.

It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant.” “Don’t be sorry,” said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. “I would rather share all the trouble of our parting.” Her lips trembled and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips, but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart.