MihaElla ’s Reviews > Middlemarch > Status Update

Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."

"No, indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a fine match."

"What for, then?"

"Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.

Dorothea smiled, and Celia looked rather meditative. Presently she said,”I cannot think how it all came about."Celia thought it would be pleasant to hear the story.

I dare say not," said-Dorothea,pinching her sister's chin.If you knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you.

Can't you tell me?said Celia,settling her arms cozily.

No, dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know.

It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!said Mrs. Cadwallader.The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with,& then a rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?—& then an old clo—"

Nonsense, Elinor,said the Rector, rising.It is time for us to go.

After all, he is a pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader.He is like the fine old Crichley portraits before the idiots came in.

“—I—should not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor, that is her affair. Nobody would have said anything if she had married the young fellow because he was rich. Plenty of beneficed clergy are poorer than they will be. Here is Elinor," continued the provoking husband;

“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.

The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe.”

“her vagrant mind must be reduced to order: there was an art in self-discipline; and she walked round and round the brown library considering by what sort of manoeuvre she could arrest her wandering thoughts. Perhaps a mere task was the best means—something to which she must go doggedly.”

“To-day was to be spent quite differently. What was there to be done in the village? Oh dear! nothing. Everybody was well and had flannel; nobody's pig had died; and it was Saturday morning, when there was a general scrubbing of doors and door-stones, and when it was useless to go into the school. But there were various subjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon,

“As Lydgate rode away, he thought, "This young creature has a heart large enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently thinks nothing of her own future, and would pledge away half her income at once, as if she wanted nothing for herself but a chair to sit in from which she can look down with those clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her.

“I must do as other men do, and think what will please the world and bring in money; look for a little opening in the London crowd, and push myself; set up in a watering-place, or go to some southern town where there are plenty of idle English, and get myself puffed,—that is the sort of shell I must creep into and try to keep my soul alive in.”

“Dorothea's voice...might have been almost taken as a proof that she could do it effectively. The searching tenderness of her woman's tones seemed made for a defence against ready accusers. Lydgate did not stay to think that she was Quixotic: he gave himself up, for the first time in his life, to the exquisite sense of leaning entirely on a generous sympathy, without any check of proud reserve.