"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. "
"Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas".
"I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth. "
"I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out. "
"In every parting there is an image of death. "
"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them."
"More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. "
"Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love. "
"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. "
"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. "
"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. "
"What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? "
"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories. "
"O May I Join the Choir Invisible"
Longum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, quam hoc exigium.—CICERO, ad Att., xii. 18.
O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.
So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonised
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burthen of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better— saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reference more mixed with love—
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty—
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
George Eliot 1867
