George Henry Lewes

“ Poor Marmaduke, although he has made some impression on her, will have, I fear, to languish a long while ere the haughty beauty condescends to step down from her pedestal. Almost as long as I shall have to wait before the modest Julius will understand, without my being forced to tell him, that he is not absolutely indifferent to a certain saucy girl at whom he makes sweet eyes.
You can't imagine how, every day, my admiration deepens for the little man. I am always finding some new illustration of his excellence; always hearing something which confirms my opinion of his nobility of soul. ”

“ In that miserable house, where meanness hourly struggled with adversity, there was a small room, which was parlour, bed-room, and sometimes kitchen, all in one; and from the contemplation of which, when you were told that in it lived a pair who had been reared in luxury and refinement, you would have turned away with painful pity. Yet were the secret history of that seemingly unfortunate pair known, your pity would change into envy, as those four miserable walls changed into a temple of Love, Youth, and Hope.
Poverty—a word of terror—is only terrible to the rich. ”

“ To any one who knew him, it would be easy to foresee that from the moment he was released from the immediate necessity of labour, his time would be frittered away in sterile efforts. It is only genius, which, goaded by an irresistible inward impulse to transmute into art all that it has felt, labours with courageous love, and sings because it cannot choose but sing. Talent of every kind needs an external stimulus, and Cecil was a man of talent, not a man of genius. ”

“ Gay and lighthearted as the hopeful and employed always are, the best qualities of his nature were brought out, and Blanche adored him, if possible, more than ever. Work—which was given to man that he might learn to know his excellence, and to know the pleasure which attends the full development of every faculty—work crowded the hours with significance, and gave to life a purpose; and Love illumined with its sunshine the difficult path which stretched itself before him. Never, no never, had Cecil known happiness till that time. ”

“ Violet, how can you think so ill of people?"
"You often ask me, Rose, how I can think so ill of mama. Yet you have to-day heard that which will partly justify me. You believe that mama assists dear Blanche, by money saved from her own allowance. I know that it is papa who sends the money. I tell you she is made up of falsehood."
"But Marmaduke?"
"Of him I thought better—yet you see?"
"I see nothing. He loves you—has forgiven mama, and is attentive to her merely to gain opportunities of seeing you." ”

“ On first eloping with Sir Chetsom, she had the tact never once to mention a settlement; indeed when he, in a moment of tenderness, alluded to the subject, she playfully put her hand upon his mouth and said,—"Oh, don't begin to talk of money, or I shall think you have bought me. You are not going to leave me, are you?"
"Leave you, Hester?"
"Yes, leave me. It looks like it. I am poor I know; but rich in your love. Make me independent, and you will think it no hardship for me to be left; it is always so with men!" ”

“ If I were painting women as they should be, of course no speck or flaw would I permit upon the radiant loveliness of my picture; but women as they are—the darlings!—admit of no such flattery.
Rose reasoned thus:—He must know I love him; or, if he is so blind as not to have seen it, he ought at least to have persevered. Who ever heard of a man giving up a woman in that cool way, because she did not throw herself into his arms, the first moment it pleased him to declare himself? He can't be really in love. ”

“ No; but there is this difference: the principles of justice and moral education may control the desire of despoiling or defrauding another of his property, but human passion owns no such stern control. Love is beyond volition. The husband cannot will to love his wife, the wife cannot will not to love another. Reason is powerless against the passion, because the woman loves before she is aware of it. She does not see the danger till she is enveloped in it. Marriage is indissoluble, but passion is capricious. It is foolish, impious, for a human being to swear that he will love another eternally. ”

“ We left Rose pondering over her lover's letter, and her own uneasiness at having by her hints called forth a delightful declaration. We return to her after the lapse of half an hour, and find her in the same state. At length the dinner-bell rings.
The volume of Leopardi lies on the table: will she take it down with her?
There is a fact in human nature which will be familiar to many, but which I am unable to explain, and that is the occasional impulse which forces us to act diametrically opposite to our wishes. It is a sudden spasm of wilfulness, wholly irrational, but wholly irresistible. ”

“ And mark the glorious inconsistency of men: you keep us ignorant, you keep us from equal privileges, you shut us from the world of action, and your sole argument for it is, that nature has unfitted us for it; that we are inferior creatures, whose organization is specially adapted to the bearing, rearing, and nursing of children; yet this, for which alone we were created, your barbarous law of marriage denies to a frightful number; wretched girls who wither in the hope of finding husbands."
"That the law of marriage," answered Cecil, "transmutes a desire into a crime is very true. ”

“ Sir Chetsom was ravished; the dupe was fooled to the top of his bent. Hester marked the effect, and from that moment knew her power. From that moment he denied her nothing. The time would come, she foresaw, when he would be completely her slave, and that was the time to make conditions.
Meanwhile, she impressed him with the notion of the necessity for their liaison being hidden from the world. If people did not respect her, they would not envy him. If she were not something more than his mistress, he would be not better than the common herd of men who have their "follies." ”

“ We sophisticate with ourselves quite as much as with others. We say we are prepared for an event which, if it occurs, takes us with the suddenness of a blow to a blind man. And Julius, when he saw Rose enter without the token, felt as if a grave had suddenly yawned at his feet. "Marmaduke was right!" he said, and instantly turned over the leaves of the "Book of Beauty," which was on the table.
Marmaduke, whom we left bewildered at the discovery of Mrs. Meredith Vyner's long-cherished affection, had not yet recovered from the agitation into which it had thrown him. ”

“ Because the present odious law of marriage is all in favour of the men."
"I demur to that."
"Men make the laws, and make them for their own advantage. Think of the gross injustice! Women must not only be rigorously pure, but must even be kept in ignorance as complete as watchfulness will admit of; but a man may have had a hundred low amours, and no father refuses to give him a daughter. Purity, which is supposed to be woman's greatest virtue, is never thought of in a man. Why should not a girl demand that her lover be as pure as herself? ”

“ The sarcasm implied in this avowal almost maddened Mrs. Vyner.
"Accept him, Miss Vyner," she said with a short, hollow, and hysterical laugh; "pray put him out of his misery; accept the offering of his deep reverence, for that offering is my leavings!"
Marmaduke and Violet both started as this poisoned sarcasm, issued from her lips, and their faces told her plainly she had struck deep.
"A reformed rake, you know, makes the best husband," she pursued; "so that one so inflammable as he is, will be sure to make a constant and adoring husband. You will be so happy with him! ”

“ When once we love, it is for ever. No neglect, no ill-usage, no inconstancy can kill it. Weak and wayward, reckless and passionate as we are, we rush into wretched extremes, we do rash things when blinded by our tears, but do what we will, we cannot stifle the love that is in our hearts."
The little creature had risen and thrown back her golden locks with the graceful fury of a Pythoness, her eyes sparkled with an unwonted light, her nostrils were dilated, her whole frame seemed animated with passion, as she declaimed, rather than spoke, that vindication of herself in her sex. ”

“ By a retrospective glance at his own conduct, and at the peril he had escaped, he was led to meditate on the nature of this woman; and by a reflection on her criminal thoughts, he was shown the criminality of his own.
This revenge which he had planned so remorselessly, what was it but a crime? If he had been wronged by a heartless woman, was it for him thus to measure out the punishment? and did her jilting him deserve so terrible a retribution?
After all, was not vengeance a "wild justice," but only the justice of savages? Was it worthy of civilized, christianized man? ”

“ The agitation of doubt once passed—Mrs. Vyner's declaration having stilled his impatience—his love for Violet resumed its empire. He saw that his vengeance was impossible, if he still thought of her; yet he could not renounce his vengeance. How to attain both objects? He would invent some plan.
He was in anxious doubt. The invention on which he had relied to extricate him when the crisis came was now powerless. He could think of nothing feasible.
Men who scheme are too apt to be caught in their own nets, from this reckless confidence in their resources. ”

“ Poor human nature!
If, however, the consciousness of the small return which his affection met with, made that affection greater, it also made his jealousy more poignant, and more easily alarmed. He never saw any one pay her the slightest attention without a qualm. He was jealous of old men, he was jealous of young men; he was jealous of fools, he was jealous of wits; he was even jealous of his daughters, because she showed them so much tenderness!
Judge, then, what he must have felt when he began to see clearly into the nature of Marmaduke's attention! ”

“ Tom Chetsom, frank old fellow, never once attempting to conceal a wrinkle, or to disguise a bald patch, could not comprehend his brother's secret pride in being made a butt. He understood the vanity of his brother's dandyism and juvenility: he saw specimens enough of that at his club. But knowing how all men, and above all men Sir Chetsom, shrunk from ridicule, it was a puzzle to him that the inevitable ridicule of his intrigue with Hester should not be a bugbear to frighten him away. ”

“ He is not a proper husband for you, the more so as he is poor, and has not the character which will enable him to battle with the world. Rich, he would not make you a good husband; poor, he will be a curse to you, and throw the blame of his misery upon you."
Blanche remained perfectly quiet during this dissection of her lover's character, and not a change in her countenance betrayed that it had in the least affected her. Nor had it. Perfectly incredulous, she listened to her sister, seeing only the distortion of prejudice in her language.
"Have you finished, Violet?" ”

“ The love we begin by feigning, we end by feeling; at least so far as the mere sensuousness of the feeling goes. Excitement at all times has a singular power of awakening into life the germs of vague desires. It intensifies a thought into a desire, a desire into a passion.
Marmaduke began by feigning a return of his former love for Mrs. Meredith Vyner. Her artful doubts increased his desire to convince her. His increased eagerness gave greater sharpness, and distinctness to that desire. Carried away by his own acting, he began at last to feel some of the passion of his part. ”