Bokelskere.no

There are episodes in most men's lives in which their highest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objects that fill their inward vision: Lydgate's tenderheartedness was present just then only as a dread lest he should offend against it, not as an emotion that swayed him to tenderness. For he was very miserable. Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life — the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it — can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

[...] but to most mortals there is a stupidity which is endurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?

"Do? Why, you must learn to form your letters and keep the line.
What's the use of writing at all if nobody can understand it?" asked
Caleb, energetically, quite preoccupied with the bad quality of the
work.

At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman to
write legibly, or with a hand in the least suitable to a clerk. Fred
wrote the lines demanded in a hand as gentlemanly as that of any
viscount or bishop of the day: the vowels were all alike and the
consonants only distinguishable as turning up or down, the strokes had
a blotted solidity and the letters disdained to keep the line - in
short, it was a manuscript of that venerable kind easy to interpret
when you know beforehand what the writer means.

"That depends," said Caleb, turning his head on one side and lowering his voice, with the air of a man who felt himself to be saying something deeply religious. "You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There's this and there's that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is — I wouldn't give twopence for him" — here Caleb's mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers — "whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn't do well what he undertook to do"

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.

The Vicar did feel then as if his share of duties would be easy. But Duty has a trick of behaving unexpetctedly - something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates.
Hardly a week later, Duty presented itself in his study under the disguise of Fred Vincy, now returned from Omnibus College with his bachelor's degree.

Mr. Toller remarked one day, smilingly, to Mrs. Taft, that 'Bulstrode had found a man to suit him in Lydgate; a charlatan in religion is sure to like other sorts of charlatans.'

Mr. Brooke of Tipton has already given me his concurrence, and a pledge to contribute yearly: he has not specified the sum — probably not a great one. But he will be a useful member of the board."

A useful member was perhaps to be defined as one who would originate nothing, and always vote with Mr. Bulstrode.

He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?