Dalgliesh

“The world bore a different aspect for her; the air blew differently, the clouds floated with another motion. To look out over the plain, and away to the blue hills in the distance, with all their variety of slopes, and the infinite sweet depths of colour and atmosphere about them, was beyond all example delightful, quite enough to fill life and make it happy. In the heavenly silence she began to put her thoughts into words, as in her youth she had done always when she was deeply moved. Oh, who are they that seek pleasure in the world, in society, in feasts and merrymakings, when it is here, at their hand, ready for their enjoyment? This was her theme. The sunset upon the hills was enough for any one; he who could not find his happiness in that, where would he find it?”
― Mrs. Oliphant, The Works of Margaret Oliphant

“misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbours. Some she took up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happiness which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company, and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county:”
― Mrs. Oliphant, The Works of Margaret Oliphant

“These three scenes through which he had passed: — bowed Jaacob’s odd philosophy and startling groundwork— “Trust in nothing that you have not conquered for yourself;” Katie’s quiet home-parlor, her blush and glance of kindness, which perhaps understood his unspoken and sudden fervor as well as he did himself; and, beyond these, the sober, calm every-day minister, giving only an outside and momentary attention to those matters in which this young life had all its hopes at stake, minding his sermon, and only kindly indifferent to Huntley, had brought the youth on a long way in the education of his life. He could not have put it all into words, or explained it to the satisfaction of the philosopher; yet the shock of reality and actual life which brought him back to himself in the little smithy of Kirkbride — the warm light of Katie’s eyes which had stirred, with”
― Mrs. Oliphant, The Works of Margaret Oliphant

“But human nature, even in a child, soon wants something more, and in Margaret the demand came very quickly. She”
― Mrs. Oliphant, The Works of Margaret Oliphant