George Gissing Quotes

The thought of Clara became a preoccupation, and with the love which at length he recongised there blended a sense of fate fulfilling itself. His enthusiasms, his purposes, never defined as education would have defined them, were dissipated into utter vagueness. He lost his guiding interests, and found himself returning to those of boyhood. The country once more attracted him; he took out of his old sketch-books, bought a new one, revived the regret that he could not be a painter of landscape. A visit to one or two picture-galleries, and then again profound discouragement, recognition of the fact that he was a mechanic and never could be anything else.
It was the end of his illusions. For him not even passionate love was to preserve the power od idealising its object. He loved Clara with all the desire of his being, but could no longer deceive himself in judging her character. The same sad clearness of vision affected his judgement of the world about him, of the activities in which he had once been zealous, of the conditions which enveloped his life and the lives of those dear to him. The spirit of revolt often enough stirred within him, but no longer found utterance in the speech which brings no relief; he did his best to dispel the mood, mocking at it as folly. Consciously he set himself that task of becoming a practical man, of learning to make the best of life as he found it, of shunning as the fatal error that habit of mind which kept John Hewett on the rack. Who was he that he should look for pleasant things in his course through the world? ‘We are the lower orders; we are the working classes,’ he said bitterly to his friend, and that seemed the final answer to all his aspirations.

He is a strong man,’ Stella said in a tone which betrayed the Socialist’s enthusiasm. ‘He stands for earth-subduing energy. I imagine him at a forge, beating fire out of iron.

We all know perfectly well that happiness is the conscious exertion of individual powers

For all that, Lee Hannaford made no objection to receiving the portion of his wife's income which she offered. He took it without thanks, keeping his reflections to himself. And therewith was practically dissolved one, at least, of the innumerable mock marriages which burden the lives of mankind. Mrs. Hannaford's only bitterness was that in law she remained wedded. It soothed her but moderately to reflect that she was a martyr to national morality.

You have to become famous before you can secure the attention which would give fame.

Ogni donna ha una maschera per tutti, tranne che per un uomo.

The unhoped was all but granted her. She could labour on in the valley of the shadow of books, for a ray of dazzling sunshine might at any moment strike into its musty gloom.

Well, Maud made a mistake, let us say. Dolomore is a clown, and now she knows it.

His religion is not an end in itself; he does not desire to be thought a saint; his prayers are inseparable from the chamber-candlestick, a mere item in the character of British respectability.

"I see. I imagined that he was cast out of all decent society".
"If society were really decent, he would have been"

A novel with undoubted weaknesses, it is nevertheless a considerable achievement for a 22 year

A powerful intellect by no means implies a corresponding development of the moral sense.

Of the country poor, at a somewhat

That poor creature’s unhappiness was doubtless in great measure due to the conviction that in missing love and marriage she had missed everything.

Hubert could not remember a time when he had not been in love. The objects of his devotion had succeeded each other rapidly, but each in her turn was the perfect woman.