MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

“You will soon forget that Tito is not a Florentine, godfather,” said Romola. “See how he is learning everything about Florence.”

“It seems to me he is one of the demoni, who are of no particular country, child,” said Bernardo, smiling. “His mind is a little too nimble to be weighted with all the stuff we men carry about in our hearts.”

Romola smiled too, in happy confidence.”

..aceasta contradictie e dintre cele mai cunoscute, domnul Jose vrea si nu vrea, doreste si se teme de ceea ce doreste, toata viata lui a fost astfel.

For it was pleasant to look at Romola’s beauty; to see her, like old Firenzuola’s type of womanly majesty, “sitting with a certain grandeur, speaking with gravity, smiling with modesty, and casting around, as it were, an odour of queenliness;” and she seemed to unfold like a strong white lily under this genial breath of admiration and homage; it was all one to her with her new bright life in Tito’s love.

“Ah, doctor, it is not by living at Padua that you can learn to know Florentines. My belief is, they would stone the Holy Father himself, if they could find a good excuse for it; and they are persuaded that you are a necromancer, who is trying to raise the pestilence by selling secret medicines—and I am told your specifics have in truth an evil smell.”

“The keen eyes were bright with hope and friendliness, as so many other young eyes have been that have afterwards closed on the world in bitterness and disappointment; for at that time there were none but pleasant predictions about Niccolò Macchiavelli, as a young man of promise, who was expected to mend the broken fortunes of his ancient family.”

Tito rose at the same moment with Romola,saying,I will reach them,if you will point them out,& followed her hastily into the adjoining small room,where the walls were also covered with ranges of books in perfect order.
There they are,said Romola,pointing upward;every book is just where it was when my father ceased to see them.
Tito stood by her hastening not to reach the books,never been in this room together before

A symbolical picture,I see,touching the lute while he spoke,so as to bring out a slight musical murmur.The child,perhaps,is the Golden Age,wanting neither worship nor philosophy.& the Golden Age can always come back as long as men are born in the form of babies,& don’t come into the world in cassock or furred mantle.Or,the child may mean the wise philosophy of Epicurus,removed alike from the gross,the sad & severe

“I thought you liked nothing that came to you without a bargain,” said the stranger. “You’ve offered me nothing yet in exchange for that information.”

“Well, well; a Florentine doesn’t mind bidding a fair price for news: it stays the stomach a little though he may win no hose by it. If I take you to the prettiest damsel in the Mercato to get a cup of milk—that will be a fair bargain.”

“I shall be more with you than I used to be," Deronda said with gentle urgency, releasing her hands and rising from his kneeling posture. "If we had been much together before, we should have felt our differences more, and seemed to get farther apart. Now we can perhaps never see each other again. But our minds may get nearer.”

“Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?" said Deronda, ready to add that Hans's success in constructing her fortunes hitherto had not been enough to warrant a new attempt.

"You monster!" retorted Hans, "do you want her to wear weeds for you all her life—burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and merry?"

“But he thought quite as much of another reason—his promise to Gwendolen. The sense of blessedness in his own lot had yet an aching anxiety at his heart: this may be held paradoxical, for the beloved lover is always called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed indifference to sorrow outside it.

“Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours—that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will not reject me—say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife—say it now. I have been in doubt so long—I have had to hide my love so long.

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
  Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
  All are but ministers of Love,
  And feed his sacred flame."
                                —COLERIDGE.”

“Much adoe there was, God wot;
  He wold love and she wold not."
                   —NICHOLAS BRETON.”

“The unripe grape, the ripe, and the dried. All things are changes,
    not into nothing, but into that which is not at present."—MARCUS
    AURELIUS.

    Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life,
    And righteous or unrighteous, being done,
    Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself
    Be laid in darkness, and the universe
    Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more.”

“Oh—the reasons of our actions!" said the Princess, with a ring of something like sarcastic scorn. "When you are as old as I am, it will not seem so simple a question—'Why did you do this?' People talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.”

See the sky, how it is slowly fading.I have always loved this bridge:I stood on it when I was a little boy. It is a meeting-place for the spiritual messengers.It is true—what the Masters said—that each order of things has its angel:that means the full message of each from what is afar.Here I have listened to the messages of earth & sky;when I was stronger I used to stay & watch for the stars in the deep heavens.

Within the soul a faculty abides,That with interpositions,which would hide & darken,so can deal,that they become Contingencies of pomp;& serve to exalt Her native brightness,as the ample moon.In the deep stillness of a summer even.Rising behind a thick and lofty grove.Into a substance glorious as her own,Yea,with her own incorporated, by power Capacious & serene
               —WORDSWORTH: Excursion

“But the fuller nature desires to be an agent, to create, and not merely to look on: strong love hungers to bless, and not merely to behold blessing. And while there is warmth enough in the sun to feed an energetic life, there will still be men to feel, "I am lord of this moment's change, and will charge it with my soul.”

Aspern. Pardon, my lord—I speak for Sigismund.
 Fronsberg. For him? Oh, ay—for him I always hold
               A pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw, Sooner or later on me. What his need?
               Mad project broken? fine mechanic wings
               That would not fly? durance, assault on watch, Bill for Epernay, not a crust to eat?
  

Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may do a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always in a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our memories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our tastes.

“One day, indeed, he had kissed not her cheek but her neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by surprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise too and say, "I beg your pardon—did I annoy you?" "Oh, it was nothing," said Gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, "only I cannot bear—to be kissed under my ear.”

“Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice,
     him or her I shall follow.
  As the water follows the moon, silently,
     with fluid steps anywhere around the globe."
                                    —WALT WHITMAN.”

How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled,& have dwindled from motives into a vacillating expectation of motives: a mind made up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? Tis a condition apt to befall a life too much at large, unmoulded by the pressure of obligation.

“I question things but do not find
  One that will answer to my mind:
  And all the world appears unkind."
                            —WORDSWORTH.”

“Mamma, don't speak to me now. It is useless to cry and waste our strength over what can't be altered. You will live at Sawyer's Cottage, and I am going to the bishop's daughters. There is no more to be said. Things cannot be altered, and who cares? It makes no difference to any one else what we do. We must try not to care ourselves. We must not give way. I dread giving way. Help me to be quiet.