She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep — only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings,… - George Eliot

Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain, Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate Was human music's self incorporate: Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of Life.

Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it. Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection.