The Moorland Cottage Quotes

“But there was danger of the child becoming dreamy, and finding her pleasure in life in reverie, not in action, or endurance, or the holy rest which comes after both, and prepares for further striving or bearing. - chapter 3”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Thus every hour in its circle brought a duty to be fulfilled; but duties fulfilled are as pleasures to the memory, and little Maggie always thought those early childish days most happy, and remembered them only as filled with careless contentment. -Chapter 1”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“If I thought I could ever grow as hard and different to the abject entreaties of a criminal as my father has been this morning–one whom he has helped to make, too–I would go off to Australia at once. Indeed, Maggie, I think it would be the best thing we could do. My heart aches about the mysterious corruptions and evils of an old state of society such as we have in England.–What do you say Maggie? Would you go?” She was silent–thinking. “I would go with you directly, if it were right,” said she, at last. “But would it be? I think it would be rather cowardly. I feel what you say; but don’t you think it would be braver to stay, and endure much depression and anxiety of mind, for the sake of the good those always can do who see evils clearly. I am speaking all this time as if neither you nor I had any home duties, but were free to do as me liked.” “What can you or I do? We are less than drops in the ocean, as far as our influence can go to model a nation?” “As”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“She listened to her story and her fears till the sobs were hushed; and the moon fell through the casement on the white closed eyelids of one, who still sighed in her sleep.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage [with Biographical Introduction]

“She had never before ventured into the world, and did not know how common and universal is the custom of picking to pieces those with whom we have just been associating; and so it pained her.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage [with Biographical Introduction]

“So little do we know of the inner truths of the households, where we come and go like intimate guests!) Maggie”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage [with Biographical Introduction]

“Es una tontería pensar que debemos ir por la vida eligiendo hombres y mujeres como si fueran frutas, y tuviéramos que escoger siempre la mejor; como si no existiera algo en nuestros corazones que, si escuchamos con atención, nos dice enseguida que hemos encontrado a quien nos está destinado.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“¡Piénsalo un poco Frank! Quizá sea muy poco lo que puedas hacer... y quizá nunca conozcas su alcance, como tampoco conoció la viuda el alcance universal de su óbolo. Pero, si todos los hombres buenos y considerados huyeran a otro país, ¿qué haríamos con nuestra pobre y querida Vieja Inglaterra?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, La casa del páramo

“El hecho de que los demás observaran esa efusión había destruido la pureza de su sufrimiento.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, La casa del páramo

“Dear Frank, think! It may be very little you can do—and you may never see the effect of it, any more than the widow saw the world-wide effect of her mite. Then if all the good and thoughtful men run away from us to some new country, what are we to do with our poor dear Old England?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“I am glad you like my thorn-tree,' said Maggie.

'I like the view from it. The thought of the solitude which must be among the hollows of those hills pleases me particularly to-day.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“One comfort (and almost the only one arising from Edward's visit) was, that she could now often be spared to go up to the thorn-tree, and calm down her anxiety, and bring all discords into peace, under the sweet influences of nature.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Frank had gone to and fro between Cambridge and Combehurst, drawn by motives of which he felt the force, but into which he did not care to examine.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Frank had entertained some idea of studying for a barrister himself: not so much as a means of livelihood as to gain some idea of the code which makes and shows a nation's conscience: but Edward's details of the ways in which the letter so often baffles the spirit, made him recoil.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Accordingly, one afternoon, late in the autumn, he rode up to Mrs. Browne's. The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased. Looking down on the distant sheltered woods, they were gorgeous in orange and crimson, but their splendor was felt to be the sign of the decaying and dying year. Even without an inward sorrow, there was a grand solemnity in the season which impressed the mind, and hushed it into tranquil thought.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“I could be obedient to some people, without knowing their reasons, even though they told me to do silly things," said Maggie, half to herself.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Her life was a shattered mirror; every part dazzling and brilliant, but wanting the coherency and perfection of a whole.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Mrs. Buxton did not make a set labor of teaching; I suppose she felt that much was learned from her superintendence, but she never thought of doing or saying anything with a latent idea of its indirect effect upon the little girls, her companions. She was simply herself; she even confessed (where the confession was called for) to short-comings, to faults, and never denied the force of temptations, either of those which beset little children, or of those which occasionally assailed herself. Pure, simple, and truthful to the heart's core, her life, in its uneventful hours and days, spoke many homilies.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“She had always from a child pictured Edward to herself as taking her father's place." (as a clergyman) "When she had thought of him as a man, it was as contemplative, grave, and gentle, as she remembered her father. With all a child's deficiency of reasoning power, she had never considered how impossible it was that a selfish, vain, and impatient boy could become a meek, humble, and pious man, merely by adopting a profession in which such qualities are required. - chapter 4”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“She had never before ventured into the world, and did not know how common and universal is the custom of picking to pieces those with whom we have just been associating; and so it pained her. - chapter 2”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“Ah! You may laugh; but that is only because I have not explained myself properly.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage

“The visit promised to be more honorable than agreeable, and Maggie almost wished herself at home again.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Moorland Cottage [with Biographical Introduction]