"He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal cenre."
"Yes! he knew how she would love. He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her. Her soul would walk in glorious sunshine, if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win back her love."
"But this delicious vision of what might have been--in which, in spite of all Margaret's repulse, he would have indulged only a few days ago--was miserably disturbed by the recollection of what he had seen near the Outwood station. 'Miserably disturbed!' that is not strong enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain. "
“‘Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into falsehood for me.’”
"Henceforward she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight. But when should she see him? Her heart leaped up in apprehension at every ring of the door-bell; and yet when it fell down to calmness, she felt strangely saddened and sick at heart at each disappointment."
"Margaret had a strange choking at her heart, which made her unable to answer. 'Oh!' thought she, 'I wish I were a man, that I could go and force him to express his disapprobation, and tell him honestly that I knew I deserved it. It seems hard to lose him as a friend just when I had begun to feel his value. How tender he was with dear mamma! If it were only for her sake, I wish he would come, and then at least I should know how much I was abased in his eyes.'"
"It was this that made the misery--that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman; yet he deemed her so attached to some other man, so led away by her affection for him as to violate her truthful nature."
"He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he was jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely, in spite of himself. "
And here the heart beats faster...
"He gave short sharp answers; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility....She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his. "
"He gave short sharp answers; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility....She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his. "
Yes...How many times I told myself these words!
“I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion.”
'I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings.'
“Their energy, their power, their indomitable courage in struggling and fighting; their lurid vividness of existence.”
This one below makes me cry every time :
"her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time - years and years hence - before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted."
This one below makes me cry every time :
"her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time - years and years hence - before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted."
Written so well...and so sad:
"his face flashed out into the old look of intense enjoyment; the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an instant, his glance instinctively sought hers, as if he wanted her sympathy. But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was grave and anxious once more; and he resolutely avoided even looking near her again during dinner."
"his face flashed out into the old look of intense enjoyment; the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an instant, his glance instinctively sought hers, as if he wanted her sympathy. But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was grave and anxious once more; and he resolutely avoided even looking near her again during dinner."
When he called her Vanity:
'No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very
probably.'
And we all know what happened in the delicious silence...I love the way Gaskell tell us about the kiss:
'Very well. Only you must pay me for them!'
'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time
of delicious silence. "
And I could go on for hours, days, months and years!
