Middlemarch Quotes

I was doing a little bedtime research and came across this review from the Atlantic Monthly, April 1873, by Arthur George Sedgwick.  I love the Internet.  
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/classrev/middlema.htm

Here are a couple of his thoughts:

"That she is an acute delineator of character, a subtle humorist, a master of English, a universal observer and a comprehensive student, a profound moralist,--all this is part of her established reputation."

"The destiny which surrounds her characters, which leads to their several allotted ends ............... is the compounded destiny of natural laws, character, and accident which we call life. It leaves nothing out of view; neither the material nor the moral forces; neither the immutable fixity of physical succession, nor the will. Man is, in these novels, neither a creature who controls nor who is controlled by nature; he is himself part of nature."

And here are a few of my favorite quotes from the narration of the book:

"Has anyone ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?"

"Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them."

"Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her particular satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact.  And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part."

"If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind.  Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.  We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock and reflect that there are  plenty more to come."

"Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible.  Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth.  But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive:  for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully in hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

OK, I love this book and have read it several times.   I am jealous of Eliot's ability to use the stories and lives of her individual characters to illustrate broad truths about human nature and interaction.  I also must share, that I love her sentence structure and masterful use of punctuation. :)  The use of the semi-colon is a lost art, and the comma is somewhat neglected these days, too. 

Happy reading!

PS  The Jane Eyre outing really helped me put to rest my  'issues' with Charlotte Bronte.  I used it as an excuse to play hooky from wedding prep to reread the book, do a little research, and to discuss it in the car-thanks for listening, friends.  I still don't love it, but I think I understand it better- and, the movie was lovely.