Bokelskere.no

and the answers she got to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable of explanation to a woman's reason.

but it was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and Creek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly.

Although Sir James was a sportsman, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey, valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase. Neither was he so well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessary to the historical continuity of the marriage-tie. On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers.

[...] […] and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities.

The parsonage was inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the morning sermon.

Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leave unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

"Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?"
"Not that I know of."
"I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soup so."

"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies a little in our family. I had it myself — that love of knowledge, and going into everything — a little too much — it took me too far; though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs underground like the rivers in Greece, you know — it comes out in the sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went a good deal into that, at one time."

[...] and she could not bear that Mr Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. She piqued herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable without any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use of his accomplishment, to save Mr Casaubon's eyes. Three times she wrote.

A man's mind - what there is of it - has always the advantage of being masculine - as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm - and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.