John Oliver Hobbes

“ Much, no doubt, was to be said for the farmer, but De Boys was not without defence. He had appeared on the scene when things were prosperous, and he was still an untravelled youth of twenty; he was therefore quite unable to contrast the old farm with the new, or properly estimate a force of character which he could only know to be uncommon, by mixing with the world. In De Boys's green judgment all elderly relatives were severe, a shade despotic, and a little too religious; all women mended socks, made incomparable pies, and scolded incessantly ”

“ There's very few men, Caroline, that can bear authority if they haven't been born with the shoulders for it. If you gave a man a nose who had never had one, he would be blowing it all day. If De Boys can see his way to do without deacons—well, I will think it over."
Miss Caroline went downstairs, scolded the dairy-maid on general grounds, called Jane to task for tearing her frock the Sunday before, hinted of dead parents turning in their grave, made a pudding with as little sugar as possible, and finally withdrew to her own room, where she indulged in a good cry. Heroism has a reaction. ”

“ The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and if it is the weak and the slow who win, how is it done save, by the most painful efforts, the sternest self-discipline, the most dogged courage, and the most touching patience? ”

“ Even now, smarting under De Boys's fancied indifference, she blamed her own poverty of attractions, not his callousness, which, since she promised—to the seeing eye—to be a beautiful woman, was as wrong-headed and feminine as it well could be. ”

“ But though he could recall the physical man to duty, his mind remained in rebellion, and he sat down, with his body forward, his arms resting on his knees, and his hands clasped, the picture of doubt and embarrassment. ”

“ If he could call to mind one, even one, scholar who was able to show gumption at a crisis and keep a family in comfort, he would let the boy go his own gait. He was searching his experience for such a prodigy when a doubt assailed him: was not learning sinful? He consulted the third chapter of Genesis and read no further. Evidently, knowledge was not for man.
The farmer's relief was unbounded: he could not only make a virtue of his own ignorance, but stand opposed to his nephew on the vantage-ground of a great moral principle. ”

“ The whole house is swarming wi' notions. A man cannot sleep nor eat for them: they sour the milk and turn his bread to ashes; they confront him on his threshold and break in upon his converse with the Lord"—here he fixed his iron-grey eye on Miss Caroline—"they make his own flesh and blood a heaviness and his children's children as vipers!" ”

“ She was young—but seventeen in fact, impulsive, wilful, passionately fond of romances, but singularly practical in her criticism of life: weeping for her heroines as heroines, yet scorning them not seldom as fools, admiring the heroes, yet finding much to be said for the villains, and displaying, for her age, sex, and inexperience, an unusual desire for strict—indeed rigorous—justice. ”

“ He never, in his own phrase, "fooled round the edge of an idea."
"A minister!" he said, at last. "What sort of a minister? If De Boys is the kind to be yanked about by deacons he hasn't much of the Battle stock in him!"
"There's room for all in the Church of England, [7] ." said Miss Caroline. "A doctrine or two needn't stand in a man's way. What's doctrine? Why should De Boys call himself a Dissenter [8] . and spoil his chances, poor lad, when he might just as well be Broad and hold his own wi' the best? When folks begin to quarrel about doctrine [9] . they are really spearin' at politics. ”

“ Aeschylus is a Greek writer known as the father of tragedy. While this tragedy only survives in fragments, it appears that the play opens with the grieving Niobe veiled and silent - giving the impression that her punishment has already been inflicted and the audience will retroactively learn her story. ↑ The Church of England is the Mother Church of the Anglican community. ”

“ It became the established church of England, separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534. ↑ One who disagrees with established opinion or belief. Religiously, this term refers to one who has separated from the established church. Dissenter ↑ Doctrine refers to a body of principles or teachings. ↑ The residence or former residence of Rector, the phrase "coming the Rectory" may here refer to De Boys becoming a rector and inhabiting a rectory ↑ The idea that baptism is a form of rebirth, where the baptized are reborn as pure. ”