-V^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■^, .A\ 
 

 GEORGE • ELIOT 
 DAY • BY • DAY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ALICE AND 
 EDWARD A. BRYANT 
 
 m 
 
 NEW . YORK 
 
 THOMAS • Y • CROWELL • COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright 1912, 
 By Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 
 
 // 
 
 CCU327024 
 
Man or woman who publishes writ- 
 ings inevitably assumes the office of 
 teacher or influencer of the public 
 mind. Let him protest as he will that 
 he only seeks to amuse, and has no 
 pretension to do more than while away 
 an hour of leisure or weariness — 
 "the idle singer of an empty day" — 
 he can no more escape influencing the 
 moral taste, and with it the action of 
 the intelligence, than a setter of fash- 
 ions in furniture and dress can fill the 
 shops with his designs and leave the 
 garniture of persons and houses unaf- 
 fected by his industry. 
 
 Leaves from a Note-Book 
 
preface 
 
 George Eliot probably ranks first among modern 
 writers in the number of pithy, epigrammatic, 
 quotable sayings to which she has given utterance. 
 Her books are replete Vvdth pointed witticisms, 
 helpful thoughts, and fine sentiments. Some of her 
 best things, however, introduced in unostentatious 
 fashion and frequently expressed through the me- 
 dium of minor characters, slip unappreciated past 
 the most devoted reader of her absorbing pages. 
 In this year book the opportunity has been taken 
 of calling attention to a selected Hst of striking 
 passages well worth pondering for their own in- 
 trinsic value, priceless gems from the store con- 
 tained in the works of the great novelist, essayist, 
 and poet. 
 
 So far as possible, it will be noted, extracts have 
 been placed under dates for which they are appro- 
 priate. It has also been thought desirable to 
 preserve a certain continuity of thought in the 
 arrangement of the selections. 
 
 [vl 
 
Slanuati? 
 
 JANUARY FIRST 
 
 I HOPE I see your honor and your reverence well, 
 and wishing you health and long life and a happy 
 
 New Year. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 1 1 
 
 What should we all do without the calendar, 
 when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The 
 admirable arrangements of the solar system, by 
 which our time is measured, always supply us with 
 a term before which it is hardly worth while to set 
 about anything we are disinclined to. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 32 
 
 JANUARY SECOND 
 
 The presence of a noble nature, generous in its 
 wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for 
 us: we begin to see things again in their larger, 
 quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be 
 seen and judged in the wholeness of our character. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 76 
 
 JANUARY THIRD 
 
 Nay, falter not — 'tis an assured good 
 To seek the noblest — 'tis your only good 
 Now you have seen it ; for that higher vision 
 Poisons all meaner choice for ever more. 
 
 Felix HoU, Ch. 49 
 
JANUARY FOURTH 
 
 When a man gets a good berth, half the deserving 
 must come after. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 52 
 
 JANUARY FIFTH 
 
 Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome 
 when we are not athirst for information, but, to be 
 quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is 
 a good deal due to the lack of matter. Speech is 
 often barren; but silence also does not necessarily 
 brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at 
 you without remark, may all the while be sitting 
 on one addled nestegg; and when it takes to cackling, 
 will have nothing to announce but that addled 
 delusion. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 16 
 
 JANUARY SIXTH 
 
 To be right in great memorable moments is per- 
 haps the thing we need most desire for ourselves. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 3 2 
 
 JANUARY SEVENTH 
 
 What makes life dreary is the want of motive; 
 but once beginning to act with that penitential, 
 loving purpose you have in your mind, there will 
 be unexpected satisfactions — there will be newly- 
 opening needs — continually coming to carry you 
 on from day to day. You will find your life growing 
 like a plant. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 65 
 
 [2] 
 
JANUARY EIGHTH 
 
 A character at unity with itself — that performs 
 what it intends, subdues every counteracting impulse 
 and has no visions beyond the distinctly possible — 
 is strong by its very negations. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 2 
 
 JANUARY NINTH 
 
 We prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the 
 reiterated choice of good or evil which gradually 
 determines character. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 2^ 
 
 JANUARY TENTH 
 
 What do we live for, if it is not to make life less 
 difficult to each other? 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 72 
 
 JANUARY ELEVENTH 
 
 That is the bitterest of all — to wear the yoke of 
 our own wrong-doing. But if you submitted to 
 that, as men submit to maiming or a lifelong in- 
 curable disease? — and made the unalterable wrong 
 a reason for more effort towards a good that may 
 do something to counterbalance the evil? One who 
 has committed irremediable errors may be scourged 
 by that consciousness into a higher course than is 
 common. There are many examples. Feeling what 
 it is to have spoiled one life may well make us long 
 to save other lives from being spoiled. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 36 
 
 [3I 
 
JANUARY TWELFTH 
 
 Failure after long perseverance is much grander 
 than never to have a striving good enough to be 
 called a failure. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 22 
 
 JANUARY THIRTEENTH 
 
 Our deeds still travel with us from afar, 
 
 And what we have been makes us what we are. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 70 
 
 JANUARY FOURTEENTH 
 
 I know it is a vain thought to flee from the work 
 that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a 
 greater blessing to our own souls, as if we could 
 choose for ourselves where we shall find the fulness 
 of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where 
 alone it is to be found, in loving obedience. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 50 
 
 JANUARY FIFTEENTH 
 
 Men rise the higher as their task is high. 
 The task being well achieved. A woman's rank 
 Lies in the fulness of her womanhood; 
 Therein alone she is royal. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. 2 
 
 JANUARY SIXTEENTH 
 
 I've been a great deal happier, since I have given 
 up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and 
 being discontented because I couldn't have my 
 own will. Our Hfe is determined for us; and it 
 makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, 
 
 [4] 
 
and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, 
 and doing what is given us to do. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. F, Ch. i 
 
 JANUARY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 It has been taught us, as you know, that the 
 reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another — so 
 said Ben Azai. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 46 
 
 JANUARY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? 
 An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time 
 wash away into nonentity. 
 
 Amos Barton, Ch. 5 
 
 JANUARY NINETEENTH 
 
 Nay, never falter: no great deed is done 
 
 By falterers who ask for certainty. 
 
 No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, 
 
 The undivided will to seek the good: 
 
 'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings 
 
 A human music from the indifferent air. 
 
 The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
 
 Is to have been a hero. Say we fail ! — 
 
 We feed the high tradition of the world. 
 
 And leave our spirit in our children's breasts. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. 1 
 
 JANUARY TWENTIETH 
 
 Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine 
 our deeds; and until we know what has been or will 
 be the peculiar combination of outward with in- 
 
 [5] 
 
ward facts, which constitutes a man's critical 
 actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise 
 about his character. There is a terrible coercion in 
 our deeds which may first turn the honest man into 
 a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the change; 
 for this reason — that the second wrong presents 
 itself to him in the guise of the only practicable 
 right. The action which before commission has 
 been seen with that blended common-sense and 
 fresh untarnished feeling which is the healthy eye 
 of the soul, is looked at afterwards with the lens 
 of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things 
 that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made 
 up of textures very much aUke. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 29 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 " Could if he would?" True greatness ever wills — 
 
 It lives in wholeness if it live at all. 
 
 And all its strength is knit with constancy. 
 
 Arntgart, Sc. 2 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 He held that reliance to be a mark of genius; 
 and certainly it is no mark to the contrary; genius 
 consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility, 
 but in a power to make or do, not anything in general, 
 but something in particular. Let him start for the 
 Continent, then, without our pronouncing on his 
 future. Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the 
 most gratuitous. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 10 
 [6] 
 
JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 All people of broad, strong sense have an instinc- 
 tive repugnance to the men of maxims; because 
 such people early discern that the mysterious com- 
 plexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, 
 and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort 
 is to repress all the divine promptings and inspira- 
 tions that spring from growing insight and sympa- 
 thy. And the man of maxims is the popular repre- 
 sentative of the minds that are guided in their moral 
 judgment solely by general rules, thinking that 
 these will lead them to justice by a ready-made 
 patent method, without the trouble of exerting 
 patience, discrimination, impartiality, — without 
 any care to assure themselves whether they have 
 the insight that comes from a hardly earned esti- 
 mate of temptation, or from a Hfe vivid and intense 
 enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with 
 all that is human. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Ch. 2 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 CastiHan gentlemen 
 
 Choose not their task — they choose to do it well. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 
 Man cannot choose his duties. You may choose 
 to forsake your duties, and choose not to have the 
 sorrow they bring. But you will go forth; and what 
 will you find, my daughter? Sorrow without duty — 
 bitter herbs, and no bread with them. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 40 
 
 [7I 
 
JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 But I'm proof against that word failure. I've 
 seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to 
 fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to 
 be best. As to just the amount of result he may see 
 from his particular work — that's a tremendous 
 uncertainty: the universe has not been arranged 
 for the gratification of his feelings. As long as a 
 man sees and believes in some great good, he'll 
 prefer working towards that in the way he's best 
 fit for, come what may. I put effects at their 
 minimum, but I'd rather have the minimum of 
 effect, if it's of the sort I care for, than the maximum 
 of effect I don't care for — a lot of fine things that 
 are not to my taste — and if they were, the con- 
 ditions of holding them while the world is what 
 it is, are such as would jar on me like grating metal. 
 
 Fdix Holt, Ch. 45 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 It's good to live only a moment at a time, as 
 I've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books. It isn't 
 for you and me to lay plans; we've nothing to do 
 but to obey and to trust. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 3 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Our lives make a moral tradition for our in- 
 dividual selves, as the Hfe of mankind at large 
 makes a moral tradition for the race; and to have 
 once acted nobly seems a reason why we should 
 always be noble. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 39 
 
 [81 
 
JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 A course of action which is in strictness a slowly 
 prepared outgrowth of the entire character, is yet 
 almost always traceable to a single impression as its 
 point of apparent origin. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 35 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Whatever one does with a strong unhesitating 
 outflow of will, has a store of motive that it would 
 be hard to put into words. Some deeds seem little 
 more than interjections which give vent to the 
 long passion of a life. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 20 
 
 JANUARY THIRTIETH 
 
 We are children of a large family, and must learn, 
 as such children do, not to expect that our hurts 
 will be made much of — to be content with little 
 nurture and caressing, and help each other the more. 
 
 Adam Bede^ Ch. 27 
 
 JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Children demand that their heroes should be 
 fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first 
 discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolution- 
 ary shock to a passionate child than the threatened 
 downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world 
 seem to totter for us in maturer life. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 16 
 
 [9] 
 
fthmavt 
 
 FEBRUARY FIRST 
 
 THE strongest principle of growth lies in human 
 choice. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 42 
 
 FEBRUARY SECOND 
 
 The devil tempts us not — 'tis we tempt him, 
 Beckoning his skill with opportunity. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 47 
 
 FEBRUARY THIRD 
 
 "I call it improper pride to let fools' notions 
 hinder you from doing a good action. There's no 
 sort of work," said Caleb, . . . "that could ever be 
 done well, if you minded what fools say. You must 
 have it inside you that your plan is right, and that 
 plan you must follow." 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 40 
 
 FEBRUARY FOURTH 
 
 I would never choose to withdraw myself from the 
 labor and common burthen of the world; but I do 
 choose to withdraw myself from the push and the 
 scramble for money and position. Any man is at 
 liberty to call me a fool, and say that mankind are 
 benefited by the push and the scramble in the long- 
 run. But I care for the people who Uve now and will 
 
 [II] 
 
not be living when the long-run comes. As it is, 
 I prefer going shares with the unlucky. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 27 
 
 FEBRUARY FIFTH 
 For high device is still the highest force, 
 And he who holds the secret of the wheel 
 May make the rivers do what work he would. 
 With thoughts impalpable we clutch men's souls, 
 Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly 
 Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind. 
 Tell me what's mirrored in the tiger's heart, 
 I'll rule that too. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 FEBRUARY SIXTH 
 
 The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who 
 have the wider vision. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Ch. 3 
 
 It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject 
 from various points of view. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 7 
 
 FEBRUARY SEVENTH 
 I cannot bear to think what life would be 
 With high hope shrunk to endurance, stunted aims 
 Like broken lances ground to eating-knives. 
 A self sunk down to look with level eyes 
 At low achievement, doomed from day to day 
 To distaste of its consciousness. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. 2 
 
 [12I 
 
FEBRUARY EIGHTH 
 
 "Ah," said Adam, "I like to read about Moses 
 best, in th' Old Testament. He carried a hard 
 business well through, and died when other folks 
 were going to reap the fruits: a man must have 
 courage to look at his hfe so, and think what'U 
 come of it after he's dead and gone. A good solid 
 bit o' work lasts: if it's only laying a floor down, 
 somebody's the better for it being done well, besides 
 the man as does it." 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 50 
 
 FEBRUARY NINTH 
 
 It's poor work allays settin' the dead above the 
 livin'. We shall all on us be dead sometime, I reckon 
 — it 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much on us be- 
 forehand, istid o' beginnin' when we're gone. It's but 
 little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crop. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 18 
 
 FEBRUARY TENTH 
 
 "Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" 
 so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry 
 faces that go along with it. At any rate, cleanliness 
 is sometimes a painful good, as any one can vouch 
 who has had his face washed the wrong way, by 
 a pitiless hand with a gold ring on the third finger. 
 
 Mr. GilfiVs Love-Story, Ch. 3 
 
 FEBRUARY ELEVENTH 
 
 Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; 
 but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty 
 would be an ignorant wwkindness. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 59 
 
 [13] 
 
FEBRUARY TWELFTH 
 
 For what is fame 
 But the benignant strength of One, transformed 
 To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come 
 As necessary breathing of such joy. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. i 
 
 FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH 
 
 The growing good of the worid is partly dependent 
 on unhistoric acts: and that things are not so ill 
 with you and me as they might have been, is half 
 owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden 
 life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 
 
 Middlemarch, Finale 
 
 FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH 
 
 There is a power in the direct glance of a sincere 
 and loving human soul, which will do more to dissi- 
 pate prejudice and kindle charity than the most 
 elaborate arguments. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 12 
 
 FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH 
 
 Expenditure — like ugliness and errors — becomes 
 a totally new thing when we attach our own person- 
 ality to it, and measure it by that wide difference 
 which is manifest (in our own sensations) between 
 ourselves and others. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 58 
 
 FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH 
 
 Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly — 
 something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably 
 
 [14] 
 
asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our 
 gates. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 52 
 
 FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 A loss which falls on another because we have 
 done right is not to lie upon our conscience. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 40 
 
 FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, 
 that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy 
 consciousness heareth innuendoes. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 31 
 
 FEBRUARY NINETEENTH 
 
 Lives are enlarged in different ways. I dare say 
 some would never get their eyes opened if it were 
 not for a violent shock from the consequences of 
 their own actions. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 36 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTIETH 
 
 We can often detect a man's deficiencies in what 
 he admires more clearly than in what he condemns, — • 
 in the sentiments he presents as laudable rather 
 than in those he decries. 
 
 Essays: Worldliness and Other-worldliness 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 The egoism which enters into our theories does 
 not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our 
 egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 53 
 
 [15] 
 
FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 The blessed work of helping the world forward, 
 happily does not wait to be done by perfect men; 
 and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John 
 Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the 
 modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes 
 nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is 
 exalted, and does nothing but what is graceful. 
 The real heroes, of God's making, are quite different: 
 they have their natural heritage of love and con- 
 science which they drew in with their mother's 
 milk; they know one or two of those deep spiritual 
 truths which are only to be won by long wrestling 
 with their own sins and their own sorrows; they 
 have earned faith and strength so far as they have 
 done genuine work; but the rest is dry barren theory, 
 blank prejudice, vague hearsay. Their insight is 
 blended with mere opinion; their sympathy is 
 perhaps confined in narrow conduits of doctrine, 
 instead of flowing forth with the freedom of a stream 
 that blesses every weed in its course; obstinacy or 
 self-assertion will often interfuse itself with their 
 grandest impulses; and their very deeds of self- 
 sacrifice are sometimes only the rebound of a passion- 
 ate egoism, 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. lo 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 It is the moment when our resolution seems about 
 
 to become irrevocable — when the fatal iron gates 
 
 are about to close upon us — that tests our strength. 
 
 Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm con- 
 
 [i6] 
 
viction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify 
 our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we 
 love better than victory. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 3 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding 
 their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are 
 less miserable. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 1 2 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment, 
 found an interest in marking the moments by 
 straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, 
 until the growth of the sum of straight strokes, 
 arranged, in triangles, has become a mastering 
 purpose? Do we not while away moments of inanity 
 or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial move- 
 ment or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, 
 which is incipient habit? That will help us to under- 
 stand how the love of accumulating money grows 
 an absorbing passion in men whose imaginations, 
 even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed 
 them no purpose beyond it. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 2 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 If there is an angel who records the sorrows of 
 men as well as their sins, he knows how many and 
 deep are the sorrows that spring from false ideas 
 for which no man is culpable. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. i 
 
 [17] 
 
FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 For an enthusiastic spirit to meet continually 
 the fixed indifference of men familiar with the object 
 of his enthusiasm is the acceptance of a slow martyr- 
 dom, beside which the fate of a missionary toma- 
 hawked without any considerate rejection of his 
 doctrines seems hardly worthy of comparison. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 42 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 The emptiness of all things, from politics to 
 pastimes, is never so striking to us as when we fail 
 in them. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 16 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 We should be churlish creatures if we could have 
 no joy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless it were in 
 agreement with our theory of righteous distribution 
 and our highest ideal of human good: what sour 
 corners our mouths would get — our eyes, what 
 frozen glances ! and all the while our own possessions 
 and desires would not exactly adjust themselves 
 to our ideal. We must have some comradeship with 
 imperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feel grati- 
 tude even where we discern a mistake that may 
 have been injurious, the vehicle of the mistake 
 being an affectionate intention prosecuted through 
 a lifetime of kindly offices. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 59 
 
 [18] 
 
Piau^ 
 
 MARCH FIRST 
 
 ALL earthly things have their lull: even on nights 
 when the most unappeasable wind is raging, 
 there will be a moment of stillness before it crashes 
 among the boughs again, and storms against the 
 windows, and howls like a thousand lost demons 
 through the keyholes. 
 
 Amos Barton, Ch. lo 
 
 MARCH SECOND 
 
 No one has strength given to do what is unnatural. 
 It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No 
 character becomes strong in that way. You will be 
 thrown into the world some day, and then every 
 rational satisfaction of your nature that you deny 
 now will assault you Uke a savage appetite. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 3 
 
 MARCH THIRD 
 
 I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have 
 their turn to be true. A man is occasionally grateful 
 when he says "Thank you." It is rather hard upon 
 him that he must use the same words with which 
 all the world declines a disagreeable invitation. 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VI, Ch. 2 
 [19] 
 
MARCH FOURTH 
 
 To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind 
 in a velvet sheath. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 39 
 
 He who rules 
 Must humor full as much as he commands; 
 Must let men vow impossibilities; 
 Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish 
 And serve the ends of wisdom. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. IV 
 
 MARCH FIFTH 
 
 We must not inquire too curiously into motives. 
 They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: 
 the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must 
 keep the germinating grain away from the light. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 2 
 
 MARCH SIXTH 
 
 Looking at the mother, you might hope that the 
 daughter would become like her, which is a pros- 
 pective advantage equal to a dowry — the mother 
 too often standing behind the daughter like a malig- 
 nant prophecy — *' Such as I am, she will shortly be." 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 24 
 
 MARCH SEVENTH 
 
 Oppositions have the illimitable range of objection 
 at command, which need never stop short at the 
 boundary of knowledge, but can draw forever on 
 the vasts of ignorance. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 45 
 
 [20] 
 
MARCH EIGHTH 
 
 I've never any pity for conceited people, because 
 
 I think they carry their comfort about with them. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 4 
 
 An ass may bray a good while before he shakes 
 the stars down. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 50 
 
 MARCH NINTH 
 
 Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes 
 us so, any more than vanity makes us witty. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 8 
 
 MARCH TENTH 
 
 Very little achievement is required in order to 
 pity another man's shortcomings. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 21 
 
 MARCH ELEVENTH 
 
 Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit 
 is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence 
 with the minutiae of mental make in which one of 
 us differs from another. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 15 
 
 MARCH TWELFTH 
 
 Prudence is but conceit 
 Hoodwinked by ignorance. There's naught exists 
 That is not dangerous and holds not death 
 For souls or bodies. Prudence turns its helm 
 To flee the storm and lands 'mid pestilence. 
 Wisdom would end by throwing dice with folly 
 But for dire passion which alone makes choice. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. II 
 [21] 
 
MARCH THIRTEENTH 
 
 The power of being quiet carries a man well 
 through moments of embarrassment. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 37 
 
 MARCH FOURTEENTH 
 
 Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imag- 
 inary dulness in others; as people who are well off 
 speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who 
 are in the prime of life raise their voice and talk 
 artificially to seniors, hastily conceiving them to 
 be deaf and rather imbecile. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 5 
 
 MARCH FIFTEENTH 
 
 The deepest curse of wrong-doing, whether of the 
 foolish or wicked sort, is that its effects are difficult 
 to be undone. I suppose there is hardly, anything 
 more to be shuddered at than that part of the history 
 of disease which shows how, when a man injures 
 his constitution by a life of vicious excess, his 
 children and grandchildren inherit diseased bodies 
 and minds, and how the effects of that unhappy 
 inheritance continue to spread beyond our calcula- 
 tion. 
 
 Essays: Address to Working Men by Felix Holt 
 
 MARCH SIXTEENTH 
 
 There is no tyranny more complete than that 
 which a self-centred negative nature exercises over 
 a morbidly sensitive nature perpetually craving 
 sympathy and support. The most independent 
 people feel the effect of a man's silence in heightening 
 [22I 
 
their value for his opinion — feel an additional 
 triumph in conquering the reverence of a critic 
 habitually captious and satirical. 
 
 The Lifted Veil, Ch. i 
 
 MARCH SEVENTEENTH 
 
 *Xike enough," said Mrs. Poyser; "for the men 
 are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' 
 they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count 
 a stocking- top while a man's getting's tongue ready; 
 an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's 
 little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks 
 take the longest hatchin'. Howiver, I'm not denyin' 
 the women are fooHsh: God Almighty made 'em 
 to match the men." 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 53 
 
 MARCH EIGHTEENTH 
 
 I have a belief of my own, and it comforts 
 me. . . . That by desiring what is perfectly good, 
 even when we don't quite know what it is and can- 
 not do what we would, we are part of the divine 
 power against evil — widening the skirts of light and 
 making the struggle with darkness narrower. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 39 
 
 MARCH NINETEENTH 
 
 Scepticism can never be thoroughly applied, else 
 life would come to a standstill: something we must 
 believe in and do, and whatever that something 
 may be called, it is virtually our own judgment, 
 even when it seems like the most slavish reliance 
 on another. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 23 
 
 [23] 
 
MARCH TWENTIETH 
 
 *'Not I, sir," said Felix; *'I should say, teach any 
 truth you can, whether it's in the Testament or out 
 of it. It's little enough anybody can get hold of, and 
 still less what he can drive into the skulls of a 
 pence-counting, parcel-tying generation, such as 
 mostly fill your chapels." 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. $ 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 I have always been thinking of the difTerent ways 
 in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I 
 find one way that makes it a wider blessing than 
 any other, I cling to that as the truest — I mean 
 that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and 
 brings in the most people as shares in it. It is 
 surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn 
 too much. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 50 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 I've seen pretty clear ever since I was a young un, 
 as religion's something else besides doctrines and 
 notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was like 
 finding names for your feelings, so as you can talk 
 of 'em when you've never known 'em, just as a 
 man may talk o' tools when he knows their names, 
 though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less 
 handled 'em. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 17 
 
 [24] 
 
MARCH TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Who shall put his finger on the work of justice, 
 and say, "It is there"? Justice is like the Kingdom 
 of God — it is not without us as a fact, it is within 
 us as a great yearning. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 67 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 But thee mustna undervally prayer. Prayer 
 mayna bring money, but it brings us what no money 
 can buy — a power to keep from sin, and be content 
 with God's will, whatever He may please to send. 
 If thee wouldst pray to God to help thee, and trust 
 in His goodness, thee wouldstna be so uneasy about 
 things. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 4 
 MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young 
 un, as religion's something else besides notions. 
 It isn't notions sets people doing the right thing — 
 it's feelings. It's the same with the notions in re- 
 ligion as it is with math'matics, — a man may be 
 able to work problems straight off in's head as he 
 sits by the fire and smokes his pipe; but if he has 
 to make a machine or a building, he must have a 
 wall and a resolution, and love something else better 
 than his own ease. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 19 
 MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 It is because sympathy is but a living again 
 through our own past in a new form, that confession 
 often prompts a response of confession. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 18 
 
 [25] 
 
MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 I think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 24 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 There is no creature whose inward being is so 
 strong that it is not greatly determined by what 
 lies outside it. 
 
 Middlemarch, Finale 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 I measure men's dulness by the devices they trust 
 in for deceiving others. Your dullest animal of all 
 is he who grins and says he doesn't mind just after 
 he has had his shins kicked. 
 
 Romola, Ch, 45 
 
 MARCH THIRTIETH 
 
 When one is grateful for something too good for 
 common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than 
 speech — one does not at least hear how inadequate 
 the words are. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 8i 
 
 MARCH THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 It's rather a strong check to one's self-complacency 
 to find how much of one's right doing depends on 
 not being in want of money. A man will not be 
 tempted to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please 
 the devil, if he doesn't want the devil's services. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 63 
 
 Poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us 
 from what we most care for. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 54 
 [26I 
 
april 
 
 APRIL FIRST 
 
 IN our springtime every day has its hidden 
 growths in the mind, as it has in the earth when 
 the little folded blades are getting ready to pierce 
 the ground. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. i8 
 
 APRIL SECOND 
 
 It has been well believed through many ages 
 that the beginning of compunction is the beginning 
 of a new life; that the mind which sees itself blame- 
 less may be called dead in trespasses — in trespasses 
 on the love of others, in trespasses on their weakness, 
 in trespasses on all those great claims which are the 
 image of our own need. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 13 
 
 APRIL THIRD 
 
 A little unpremeditated insincerity must be 
 indulged under the stress of social intercourse. The 
 talk even of an honest man must often represent 
 merely his wish to be inoffensive or agreeable rather 
 than his genuine opinion or feeling on the matter in 
 hand. His thought, if uttered, might be wounding; 
 or he has not the ability to utter it with exactness 
 and snatches at a loose paraphrase; or he has really 
 no genuine thought on the question and is driven to 
 fill up the vacancy by borrowing the remarks in 
 
 [27] 
 
vogue. These are the winds and currents we have 
 all to steer amongst, and they are often too strong 
 for our truthfulness or our wit. Let us not bear too 
 hardly on each other for this common incidental 
 frailty, or think that we rise superior to it by drop- 
 ping all considerateness and deference. 
 
 Theophrastus Such, Ch. 5 
 APRIL FOURTH 
 
 Let the wise be warned against too great readiness 
 at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, 
 lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 4$ 
 
 APRIL FIFTH 
 
 "Ahl" said Bartle, sneeringly, "the women are 
 quick enough — they're quick enough. They 
 know the rights of a story before they hear it, and 
 can tell a man what his thoughts are before he 
 knows 'em himself." 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 53 
 
 APRIL SIXTH 
 
 Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, 
 like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is 
 not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left 
 arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is 
 invisible, but the victim totters under the dire 
 clutch. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 13 
 
 APRIL SEVENTH 
 
 Speech is but broken light upon the depth 
 Of the unspoken. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 [28] 
 
APRIL EIGHTH 
 Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. 2 
 
 The sublime delight of truthful speech to one 
 who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself 
 felt even through the pangs of sorrow. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 46 
 
 APRIL NINTH 
 
 Falsehood is so easy, truth so difiicult. The 
 pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing 
 a griffin — the longer the claws, and the larger the 
 wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which 
 we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we 
 want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine 
 your words well, and you will find that even when 
 you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard 
 thing to say the exact truth, even about your own 
 immediate feelings — much harder than to say some- 
 thing fine about them which is not the exact truth. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 17 
 
 APRIL TENTH 
 
 He had borrowed from the terrible usurer False- 
 hood, and the loan had mounted and mounted with 
 the years, till he belonged to the usurer, body and 
 soul. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 39 
 
 APRIL ELEVENTH 
 
 The man who has failed in the use of some in- 
 directness, is helped very little by the fact that his 
 rivals are men to whom that indirectness is a some- 
 
thing human, very far from being alien. There 
 remains this grand distinction, that he has failed, 
 and that the jet of light is thrown entirely on his 
 misdoings. 
 
 Fdix Holt, Ch. 34 
 
 APRIL TWELFTH 
 
 Many feel themselves very confidently on safe 
 ground when they say: It must be good for man to 
 know the Truth. But it is clearly not good for a 
 particular man to know some particular truth, as 
 irremediable treachery in one whom he cherishes — 
 better that he should die without knowing it. 
 
 Of scientific truth, is it not conceivable that some 
 facts as to the tendency of things affecting the final 
 destination of the race might be more hurtful when 
 they had entered into the human consciousness than 
 they would have been if they had remained purely 
 external in their activity? 
 
 Leaves from a Note-Book 
 
 APRIL THIRTEENTH 
 
 The mother's love is at first an absorbing delight, 
 blunting all other sensibilities; it is an expansion of 
 the animal existence; it enlarges the imagined range 
 for self to move in: but in after years it can only 
 continue to be joy on the same terms as other long- 
 lived love — that is, by much suppression of self, 
 and power of living in the experience of another. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. i 
 
 APRIL FOURTEENTH 
 
 If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only 
 in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; 
 
 [301 
 
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. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 55 
 
 APRIL FIFTEENTH 
 
 Who has been quite free from egoistic escapes 
 of the imagination picturing desirable consequences 
 on his own future in the presence of another's mis- 
 fortune, sorrow, or death? The expected promotion 
 or legacy is the common type of a temptation which 
 makes speech and even prayer a severe avoidance 
 of the most insistent thoughts, and sometimes 
 raises an inward shame, a self-distaste, that is worse 
 than any other form of unpleasant companionship. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 58 
 
 APRIL SIXTEENTH 
 
 Excellence encourages one about life generally; 
 it shows the spiritual wealth of the world. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 36 
 
 APRIL SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk 
 in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist 
 that enshrouds others. 
 
 Leaves from a Note-Book 
 
 [31] 
 
APRIL EIGHTEENTH 
 
 In a man under the immediate pressure of a great 
 sorrow, we tolerate morbid exaggerations; we are 
 prepared to see him turn away a weary eye from 
 sunlight and flowers and sweet human faces, as if this 
 rich and glorious life had no significance but as a 
 preliminary of death; we do not criticise his views, 
 we compassionate his feelings. . . . But when he 
 becomes didactic, rather than complaining, — 
 when he ceases to sing his sorrows, and begins to 
 insist on his opinions, — when that distaste for life 
 which we pity as a transient feeling, is thrust upon 
 us as a theory, we become perfectly cool and critical, 
 and are not in the least inclined to be indulgent 
 to false views and selfish sentiments. 
 
 Essays: Worldliness and Other-W orldliness 
 
 APRIL NINETEENTH 
 
 The sense of security more frequently springs 
 from habit than from conviction, and for this reason 
 it often subsists after such a change in the conditions 
 as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The 
 lapse of time during which a given event has not 
 happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged 
 as a reason why the event should never happen, 
 even when the lapse of time is precisely the added 
 condition which makes the event imminent. A 
 man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for 
 forty years, unhurt by an accident, as a reason why 
 he should apprehend no danger, though the roof 
 is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that 
 
 [32] 
 
the older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him 
 to retain a believing conception of his own death. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 5 
 
 APRIL TWENTIETH 
 
 Indefinite visions of ambition are weak against 
 the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly 
 agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying 
 out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn 
 out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind the 
 most incredulous person has a private leaning to- 
 wards miracle: impossible to conceive how our 
 wish could be fulfilled, still — very wonderful 
 things have happened! 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 60 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Few things hold the perceptions more thoroughly 
 captive than anxiety about what we have got to say. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 51 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Prejudices, like odorous bodies, have a double 
 existence both solid and subtle — solid as the 
 pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo, 
 or as the memory of hyacinths which once scented 
 the darkness. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 43 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 It was certainly not her plainness that attracted 
 them (and let all plain young ladies be warned 
 against the dangerous encouragements given them 
 
 I33] 
 
by Society to confide in their want of beauty). A 
 human being in this aged nation of ours is a very 
 wonderful whole, the slow creation of long inter- 
 changing influences; and charm is a result of two 
 such wholes, the one loving and the one loved. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 40 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 There are answers which, in turning away wrath, 
 only send it to the other end of the room, and to 
 have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that 
 justice is all on your own side is even more exas- 
 perating in marriage than in philosophy. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 29 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 The subtle and varied pains springing from the 
 higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, 
 are perhaps less pitiable than that dreary absence 
 of impersonal enjoyment and consolation which 
 leaves ruder minds to the perpetual urgent compan- 
 ionship of their own griefs and discontents. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 3 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Among our valued friends is there not some one 
 or other who is a little too self-confident and dis- 
 dainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted 
 with commonness; who is a little pinched here and 
 protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose 
 better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong 
 
 [34] 
 
channel under the influence of transient solicita- 
 tions? 
 
 Middkmarch, Ch. 15 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 We know what a masquerade all development 
 is, and what effective shapes may be disguised in 
 helpless embryos. In fact, the world is full of hope- 
 ful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called 
 possibilities. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 10 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Signs are small measurable things, but interpre- 
 tations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent 
 nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, 
 hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a diffused 
 thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge. 
 They are not always too grossly deceived; for 
 Sinbad himself may have fallen by good-luck on 
 a true description, and wrong reasoning sometimes 
 lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting 
 a long way off the true point, and proceeding by 
 loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just 
 where we ought to be. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 3 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 It belongs to every large nature, when it is not 
 under the immediate power of some strong un- 
 questioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the 
 truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities 
 beyond its own horizon. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 27 
 
 [35I 
 
APRIL THIRTIETH 
 
 ''But surely that is a happiness to have so many 
 tastes, — to enjoy so many beautiful things, when 
 they are within your reach," said Maggie, musingly. 
 "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity 
 only to have one sort of talent, — almost like a 
 carrier-pigeon." 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 3 
 
 36 
 
MAY FIRST 
 
 THE wood I walk in on this mild May day, 
 with the young yellow-brown foliage of the 
 oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star- 
 flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground 
 ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what 
 strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, 
 could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within 
 me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, 
 these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with 
 its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy 
 fields, each with a sort of personality given to it 
 by the capricious hedgerows, — such things as these 
 are the mother tongue of our imagination, the 
 language that is laden with all the subtle, inextri- 
 cable associations the fleeting hours of our child- 
 hood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine 
 on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more 
 than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were 
 not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off 
 years which still live in us, and transform our per- 
 ception into love. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. I, Ch. 6 
 MAY SECOND 
 
 It seems to me beauty is part of the finished 
 language by which goodness speaks. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 19 
 
 [37] 
 
MAY THIRD 
 
 Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning 
 of a growth within us any more than without us: 
 there have been many circulations of the sap before 
 we detect the smallest sign of the bud. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 7 
 
 MAY FOURTH 
 
 A human life should be well rooted in some spot 
 of a native land, where it may get the love of tender 
 kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go 
 forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, 
 for whatever will give that early home a familiar 
 unmistakable difference amidst the future widening 
 of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of 
 early memories may be inwrought with affection, 
 and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even 
 to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by senti- 
 mental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of 
 the blood. At five years old, mortals are not pre- 
 pared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated 
 by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into 
 impartiality; and that prejudice in favor of milk 
 with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way 
 body and soul must get nourished at least for a 
 time. The best introduction to astronomy is to 
 think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars 
 belonging to one's own homestead. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 3 
 
 MAY FIFTH 
 
 Always there is seed being sown silently and 
 unseen, and everywhere there come sweet flowers 
 
 [38] 
 
without our foresight or labor. We reap what we 
 sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, 
 and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit that 
 spring from no planting of ours. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 5 
 
 MAY SIXTH 
 
 "Ay, ay!" said Mrs. Poyser; "one 'ud think, an' 
 hear some folks talk, as the men war 'cute enough 
 to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling 
 at it. They can see through a barn-door, they can. 
 Perhaps that's the reason they can see so little o' 
 this side on't." 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 53 
 
 MAY SEVENTH 
 
 He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which 
 will sometimes befall the man whom others are 
 inclined to trust as a mentor — the irritation of 
 perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the 
 same plane of desire and temptation as those who 
 confess to him. Our guides, we pretend, must be 
 sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers 
 who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 37 
 
 MAY EIGHTH 
 
 The temptations that most beset those who have 
 great natural gifts, and are wise after the flesh, are 
 pride and scorn, more particularly towards those 
 weak things of the world which have been chosen 
 to confound the things which are mighty. The 
 scornful nostril and the high head gather not the 
 
 I39] 
 
odors that lie on the track of truth. The mind 
 that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is 
 ... as a clinched fist that can give blows, but is 
 shut up from receiving and holding aught that is pre- 
 cious — though it were heaven-sent manna. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. s 
 
 MAY NINTH 
 
 Repent? Not I. Repentance is the weight 
 Of undigested meals ta'en yesterday. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 MAY TENTH 
 
 When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of 
 the persecuting passions bringing in their verdict 
 of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a rare and 
 blessed lot which some greatest men have not at- 
 tained, to k^iow ourselves guiltless before a con- 
 demning crowd — to be sure that what we are de- 
 nounced for is solely the good in us. The pitiable lot 
 is that of the man who could not call himself a 
 martyr even though he were to persuade himself that 
 the men who stoned him were but ugly passions in- 
 carnate — who knows that he is stoned, not for 
 professing the Right, but for not being the man he 
 professed to be. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 85 
 
 MAY ELEVENTH 
 
 Some minds naturally rebel against whatever they 
 were brought up in, and like the opposite: they see 
 the faults in what is nearest to them. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 32 
 
 [40] 
 
MAY TWELFTH 
 
 What we call our despair is often only the painful 
 eagerness of unfed hope. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 51 
 
 MAY THIRTEENTH 
 
 Even his proud outspokenness was checked by 
 the discernment that it was as useless to fight 
 against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip 
 the fog. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 45 
 
 MAY FOURTEENTH 
 
 Results which depend on human conscience and 
 intelligence work slowly. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 15 
 
 MAY FIFTEENTH 
 
 If we only look far enough off for the consequence 
 of our actions, we can always find some point in 
 the combination of results by which those actions 
 can be justified; by adopting the point of view of 
 a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher 
 who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain 
 perfect complacency in choosing to do what is 
 most agreeable to us in the present moment. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. V, Ch. 3 
 
 MAY SIXTEENTH 
 
 Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself 
 tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by 
 pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, 
 and which of the two, pray, will be master? 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 14 
 
 I41] 
 
MAY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 It is always our heaviest bore who is astonished 
 at the tameness of modern celebrities: naturally; 
 for a little of his company has reduced them to a 
 state of flaccid fatigue. It is right and meet that 
 there should be an abundant utterance of good 
 sound commonplaces. Part of an agreeable talker's 
 charm is that he lets them fall continually with no 
 more than their due emphasis. Giving a pleasant 
 voice to what we are all well assured of, makes a 
 sort of wholesome air for more special and dubious 
 remark to move in. 
 
 Theophrastus Such, Ch. S 
 
 MAY EIGHTEENTH 
 O they are dullards, kick because they're stung, 
 And bruise a friend to show they hate a wasp. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 
 MAY NINETEENTH 
 Those who trust us educate us. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 35 
 
 There are natures in which, if they love us, we 
 are conscious of having a sort of baptism and con- 
 secration : they bind us over to rectitude and purity 
 by their pure belief about us; and our sins become 
 that worst kind of sacrilege which tears down the 
 invisible altar of trust. *'If you are not good, none 
 is good" — those little words may give a terrific 
 meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic 
 intensity for remorse. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 77 
 
 [42] 
 
MAY TWENTIETH 
 
 When a woman feels purely and nobly, that 
 ardor of hers which breaks through formulas too 
 rigorously urged on men by daily practical needs, 
 makes one of her most precious influences: she is 
 the added impulse that shatters the stiffening 
 crust of cautious experience. Her inspired igno- 
 rance gives a subHmity to actions so incongruously 
 simple, that otherwise they would make men smile. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 46 
 
 MAY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as 
 ever in the world except for those phlegmatic 
 natures who I suspect would in any age have re- 
 garded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. 
 They exist very easily in the same room with the 
 microscope and even in railway carriages: what 
 banishes them is the vacuum in gentlemen and 
 lady passengers. How should all the apparatus 
 of heaven and earth, from the farthest firmament 
 to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished 
 us, make poetry for a mind that has no movements 
 of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which 
 thrills from the near to the distant, and back again 
 from the distant to the near? 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. ig 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 A woman dictates before marriage in order that 
 she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. 
 And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female 
 
 [43] 
 
mortals make when we have our own way might 
 fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 9 
 
 MAY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 He had "been the making of Johnson;" and this 
 seems to many men a reason for expecting devotion, 
 in spite of the fact that they themselves, though 
 very fond of their own persons and lives^ are not at 
 all devoted to the Maker they believe in. 
 •,, Felix Holt, Ch. 29 
 
 MAY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 The disappointment of a youthful passion has 
 effects as incalculable as those of small-pox, which 
 may make one person plain and a genius, another 
 less plain and more foolish, another plain without 
 detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the major- 
 ity without obvious change. Everything depends — 
 not on the mere fact of disappointment, but — on 
 the nature affected and the force that stirs it. 
 
 Datiiel Deronda, Ch. 58 
 
 MAY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Of course people need not be always talking well. 
 Only one tells the quality of their minds when they 
 try to talk well. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 4 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 In fact, very little peacock was eaten; but there 
 was the satisfaction of sitting at a table where 
 peacock was served up in a remarkable manner, 
 
 [44] 
 
and of knowing that such caprices were not within 
 reach of any but those who supped with the very 
 wealthiest men. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 39 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Human beings in moments of passionate reproach 
 and denunciation, especially when their anger is 
 on their own account, are never so wholly in the 
 right that the person who has to wince cannot 
 possibly protest against some unreasonableness or 
 unfairness in their outburst. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 42 
 
 MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 When a poet floats in the empyrean, and only 
 takes a bird's-eye view of the earth, some people 
 accept the mere fact of his so^.ring for sublimity, 
 and mistake his dim vision of earth for proximity to 
 heaven. 
 
 Essays: Worldliness and Other-W orldliness 
 
 MAY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 What we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider 
 vision of past and present realities — a willing 
 movement of a man's soul with the larger sweep 
 of the world's forces — a movement towards a more 
 assured end than the chances of a single life. We 
 see human heroism broken into units and say, this 
 unit did little — might as well not have been. But 
 in this way we might break up a great army into 
 units; in this way we might break the sunlight into 
 fragments, and think that this and the other might 
 
 [45] 
 
be cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monu- 
 ment to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept 
 the ranks unbroken, and met death — a monument 
 to the faithful who were not famous, and who are 
 precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, 
 though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. i6 
 
 MAY THIRTIETH 
 
 Our dead are never dead to us until we have 
 forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can 
 be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our 
 aching sense that their place is empty, all the 
 kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their 
 presence. 
 
 Adam Bede 
 
 MAY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the 
 thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; 
 as if Hfe were not sacred too — as if it were com- 
 paratively a light thing to fail in love and reverence 
 to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome 
 steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness 
 were due to the one who is spared that hard journey. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. ii 
 
 46 
 
9!une 
 
 JUNE FIRST 
 
 IT never will rain roses: when we want 
 To have more roses we must plant more trees. 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 JUNE SECOND 
 
 A woman's lot is made for her by the love she 
 accepts. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 43 
 
 JUNE THIRD 
 
 Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive 
 the consequences of their recklessness. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 52 
 
 JUNE FOURTH 
 
 Love does not aim simply at the conscious good 
 of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without per- 
 fect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 28 
 
 JUNE FIFTH 
 
 It is hard to believe long together that anything 
 is "worth while" unless there is some eye to kindle 
 in common with our own, some brief word uttered 
 now and then to imply that what is infinitely 
 precious to us is precious alike to another mind. 
 
 Letter to Madame Bodichon 
 
 [47I 
 
JUNE SIXTH 
 
 Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can 
 exalt the relations of the least-instructed human 
 beings. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. i6 
 
 JUNE SEVENTH 
 
 To think of the part one little woman can play 
 in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be 
 a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her 
 may be discipline! 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 66 
 
 JUNE EIGHTH 
 
 But is it what we love, or how we love, 
 That makes true good? 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 
 JUNE NINTH 
 
 Faithfulness and constancy mean something else 
 besides doing what is easiest and pleasantest to our- 
 selves. They mean renouncing whatever is opposed 
 to the reliance others have in us, — whatever would 
 cause misery to those whom the course of our lives 
 has made dependent on us. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VI, Ch. 14 
 
 JUNE TENTH 
 
 A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime 
 rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into 
 partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not 
 to be had where and how she wills: to know that 
 high initiation, she must often tread where it is 
 
 [48] 
 
hard to tread, and feel the chill air, and watch 
 through darkness. It is not true that love makes 
 all things easy : it makes us choose what is difficult. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 49 
 
 JUNE ELEVENTH 
 
 The impulse to confession almost always requires 
 the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in 
 our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom 
 we have no tie but our common nature, seems 
 nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our 
 daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from 
 each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, 
 and those who sit with us at the same hearth are 
 often the farthest off from the deep human soul 
 within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 16 
 
 JUNE TWELFTH 
 
 It is easy to say how we love new friends, and 
 what we owe them, but words can never trace out 
 all the fibres that knk us to the old^ 
 
 Journal 
 
 JUNE THIRTEENTH 
 
 Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. 
 Who can quit young lives after being long in com- 
 pany with them, and not desire to know what befell 
 them in their after-years? For the fragment of a 
 life, however typical, is not the sample of an even 
 web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent 
 outset may be followed by declension; latent powers 
 
 [49] 
 
may find their long- waited opportunity; a past 
 error may urge a grand retrieval. 
 
 Marriage, which has been the bourn of so many 
 narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to 
 Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, 
 but had their first little one among the thorns and 
 thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning 
 of the home epic — the gradual conquest or irre- 
 mediable loss of that complete union which makes 
 the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest 
 of sweet memories in common. 
 
 Middlemarch, Finale 
 
 JUNE FOURTEENTH 
 
 It is with men as with trees: if you lop off their 
 finest branches, into which they were pouring their 
 life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some 
 rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might 
 have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, 
 is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an 
 irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come 
 of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed 
 the nature just when it was expanding into plen- 
 teous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we 
 visit with our harsh blame, may be but as the un- 
 steady motion of a man whose best limb is withered. 
 Mr. GilfiVs Love-Story^ Epilogue 
 
 JUNE FIFTEENTH 
 
 Whenever affection can spring, it is like the green 
 leaf and the blossom — pure, and breathing purity, 
 whatever soil it may grow in. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 50 
 
 . [50] 
 
JUNE SIXTEENTH 
 
 We get our knowledge of perfect Love by glimpses 
 and in fragments chiefly — the rarest only among 
 us knowing what it is to worship and caress, rever- 
 ence and cherish, divide our bread and mingle our 
 thoughts at one and the same time, under inspira- 
 tion of the same object. Finest aromas will so 
 often leave the fruits to which they are native and 
 cling elsewhere, leaving the fruit empty of all but 
 its coarser structure ! 
 
 Leaves from a Note-Book 
 
 JUNE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Thousands of men have wedded poverty because 
 they expect to go to heaven for it; I don't expect 
 to go to heaven for it, but I wed it because it enables 
 me to do what I most want to do on earth. What- 
 ever the hopes for the world may be — whether 
 great or small — I am a man of this generation; 
 I will try to make life less bitter for a few within my 
 reach. It is held reasonable enough to toil for the 
 fortunes of a family, though it may turn to imbe- 
 cility in the third generation. I choose a family 
 with more chances in it. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 27 
 
 JUNE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 No one who has ever known what it is thus to 
 lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly 
 loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the 
 shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness 
 unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, 
 the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in 
 
 [51] 
 
our own better self, since that also is part of the 
 common nature which is degraded in our thought; 
 and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 6i 
 
 JUNE NINETEENTH 
 
 "Stop, stop, mother," Felix burst in; "pray 
 don't use that limping argument again — that a 
 man should marry because he's fond of children. 
 That's a reason for not marrying. A bachelor's 
 children are always young: they're immortal chil- 
 dren — always Hsping, waddling, helpless, and with a 
 chance of turning out good." 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 22 
 
 JUNE TWENTIETH 
 
 In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been 
 good for some men to be alone, and for some women 
 also. 
 
 Fdix Holt, Ch. 44 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 "Oh, I know," said Priscilla, "I know the way 
 o' wives; they set one on to abuse their husbands, 
 and then they turn round on one and praise 'em 
 as if they wanted to sell 'em." 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 17 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 If you have any reason for not indulging a wish 
 to speak to a fair woman, it is a bad plan to look 
 long at her back: the wish to see what it screens 
 becomes the stronger. There may be a very sweet 
 smile on the other side. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 35 
 
 [52] 
 
JUNE TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 When a man has seen the woman whom he would 
 have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, 
 his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her 
 resolution rather than on his. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. ii 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 To delight in doing things because our fathers 
 did them is good if it shuts out nothing better; it 
 enlarges the range of affection — and affection is 
 the broadest basis of good in Ufe. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 35 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 It ought to lie with a man's self that he is a 
 gentleman. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 6i 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as 
 tenderness is under a love which it cannot return. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 10 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Shallow natures dream of an easy sway over the 
 emotions of others, trusting implicitly in their own 
 petty magic to turn the deepest streams, and con- 
 fident, by pretty gestures and remarks, of making 
 the thing that is not as though it were. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 78 
 JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Ah, mind is an enemy to beauty! I myself was 
 thought beautiful by the women at one time — 
 
 [53] 
 
when I was in my swaddling-bands. But now — 
 oime! I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my 
 face! 
 
 Romola, Ch. 45 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices 
 quite as much as beauty; it is apt either to feign 
 amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the re- 
 pulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called 
 an ugly thing in contrast with that lovely creature 
 your companion, is apt to produce some effect be- 
 yond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the 
 phrase. 
 
 Middlemarchf Ch. 12 
 
 JUNE THIRTIETH 
 
 I wonder whether the subtle measuring of forces 
 will ever come to measuring the force there would 
 be in one beautiful woman whose mind was as noble 
 as her face was beautiful — who made a man's 
 passion for her rush in one current with all the 
 great aims of his life. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 27 
 
 [54] 
 
JULY FIRST 
 
 PERHAPS there is no time in a summer's day 
 more cheering than when the warmth of the sun 
 is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of 
 the morning — when there is just a Hngering hint 
 of early coolness to keep off languor under the de- 
 licious influence of warmth. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. ig 
 
 JULY SECOND 
 
 There comes a terrible moment to many souls 
 when the great movements of the world, the larger 
 destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in news- 
 papers and other neglected reading, enter like an 
 earthquake into their own lives — when the slow 
 urgency of growing generations turns into the tread 
 of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, 
 and gray fathers know nothing to seek for but the 
 corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all 
 vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve 
 for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. 
 Then it is as if the Invisible Power that has been 
 the object of lip-worship and lip-resignation became 
 visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew 
 poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on 
 the wings of the wind, till the mountains smoke and 
 the plains shudder under the rolling fiery visitation. 
 
 [55] 
 
Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under 
 the thunder of unrelenting force, the martyrs live 
 reviled, they die, and no angel is seen holding forth 
 the crown and the palm branch. Then it is that 
 the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, 
 and even in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from 
 the scene of human struggle with the awful face 
 of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something 
 else than a private consolation. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 7 
 
 JULY THIRD 
 
 The cause of freedom, which is the cause of God's 
 kingdom upon earth, is often most injured by the 
 enemies who carry within them the power of certain 
 human virtues. The wickedest man is often not 
 the most insurmountable obstacle to the triumph 
 of good. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 59 
 
 JULY FOURTH 
 
 Even our failures are a prophecy. 
 Even our yearnings and our bitter tears 
 After that fair and true we cannot grasp; 
 As patriots who seem to die in vain 
 Make liberty more sacred by their pangs. 
 
 A Minor Prophet 
 JULY FIFTH 
 
 After all the talk of scholars, there are but two 
 sorts of government: one where men show their 
 teeth at each other, and one where men show their 
 tongues and lick the feet of the strongest. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 39 
 
 [56] 
 
JULY SIXTH 
 
 The very truth hath a color from the disposition 
 of the utterer. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 44 
 
 JULY SEVENTH 
 
 A man may be puffed and belauded, envied, 
 ridiculed, counted upon as a tool and fallen in love 
 with, or at least selected as a future husband, and 
 yet remain virtually unknown — known merely 
 as a cluster of signs for his neighbors' false supposi- 
 tions. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 15 
 
 JULY EIGHTH 
 
 In many of our neighbors' lives, there is much 
 not only of error and lapse, but of a certain exquisite 
 goodness which can never be written or even spoken 
 — only divined by each of us, according to the 
 inward instruction of our own privacy. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 16 
 
 JULY NINTH 
 
 This world is not a very fine place for a good 
 many of the people in it. But I've made up my 
 mind it shan't be the worse for me, if I can help it. 
 They may tell me I can't alter the world — that 
 there must be a certain number of sneaks and 
 robbers in it, and if I don't He and filch somebody 
 else will. Well, then, somebody else shall, for I 
 won't. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. $ 
 
 [57] 
 
JULY TENTH 
 
 Our words have wings, but fly not where we 
 would. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 JULY ELEVENTH 
 
 I believe that people are almost always better 
 than their neighbors think they are. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 72 
 
 JULY TWELFTH 
 
 Personal feeling is not always in the wrong if you 
 boil it down to the impressions which make it 
 simply an opinion. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 45 
 
 JULY THIRTEENTH 
 
 See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too 
 hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities 
 are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The 
 keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the 
 delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve-filaments, 
 which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves 
 in the invisible world of human sensation. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 11 
 
 JULY FOURTEENTH 
 
 That talkative maiden. Rumor, though in the 
 interest of art she is figured as a youthful winged 
 beauty with flowing garments, soaring above the 
 heads of men, and breathing world- thrilling news 
 through a gracefully curved trumpet, is in fact a 
 very old maid, who puckers her silly face by the 
 
 [58] 
 
fireside, and really does no more than chirp a wrong 
 guess or a lame story into the ear of a fellow-gossip; 
 all the rest of the work attributed to her is done 
 by the ordinary working of those passions against 
 which men pray in the Litany, with the help of a 
 plentiful stupidity against which we have never 
 yet had any authorized form of prayer. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 8 
 
 JULY FIFTEENTH 
 
 "People will talk," he said. ''Even if a man has 
 been acquitted by a jury, they'll talk, and nod and 
 wink — and as far as the world goes, a man might 
 often as well be guilty as not." 
 
 Middletnarch) Ch. 74 
 
 JULY SIXTEENTH 
 
 What we call the "just possible" is sometimes 
 true and the thing we find it easier to believe is 
 grossly false. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 73 
 
 JULY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and 
 effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off 
 (having no idea how powdery they are) when they 
 are buzzing in search of their particular nectar. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 59 
 
 JULY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the 
 dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves 
 nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 13 
 
 [59] 
 
JULY NINETEENTH 
 
 We are rather apt to consider an act wrong be- 
 cause it is unpleasant to us. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 84 
 
 JULY TWENTIETH 
 
 Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the 
 hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but 
 poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we 
 feel anything but awe and pity when we see a 
 fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves? 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 22 
 
 JULY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Retribution may come from any voice; the 
 hardest, crudest, most imbruted urchin at the 
 street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are 
 rarer things, more needful for the righteous to be- 
 stow. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Ch. 2 
 
 JULY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has 
 once begotten. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 58 
 
 JULY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 In this stupid world most people never consider 
 that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by 
 their own set. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 44 
 
 [60] 
 
JULY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Heaven knows what would become of our sociality 
 if we never visited people we speak ill of: we should 
 live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude. 
 
 Janet's Repentance^ Ch. 25 
 
 JULY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Well, madam, put a good face on it, and don't 
 seem to be on the lookout for crows, else you'll 
 set other people watching. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. i 
 
 JULY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 The prevarication and white lies which a mind 
 that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under 
 as a great artist under the false touches that no eye 
 detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere 
 trimmings when once the actions have become a lie. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. is 
 
 JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Unhappily the habit of being offensive "without 
 meaning it" leads usually to a way of making amends 
 which the injured person cannot but regard as a 
 being amiable without meaning it. The kindness, the 
 complimentary indications or assurances, are apt 
 to appear in the light of a penance adjusted to the 
 foregoing lapses, and by the very contrast they offer 
 call up a keener memory of the wrong they atone 
 for. They are not a spontaneous prompting of 
 good-will, but an elaborate compensation. 
 
 Theophrastus Such, Ch. 6 
 
 [61I 
 
JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just 
 as they are often better than we are. And God 
 sees us as we are altogether, not in separate feeUngs 
 or actions, as our fellow-men see us. We are always 
 doing each other injustice, and thinking better or 
 worse of each other than we deserve, because we 
 only hear and see separate words and actions. We 
 don't see each other's whole nature. . 
 
 Mr. GilfiVs Love-Story, Ch. 19 
 
 JULY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Truth is oft 
 Scattered in fragments round a stately pile 
 Built half of error; and the eye's defect 
 May breed too much denial. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. II 
 
 JULY THIRTIETH 
 
 Even the flowers and the pure sunshine and the 
 sweet waters of Paradise would have been spoiled 
 for a young heart, if the bowered walks had been 
 haunted by an Eve gone gray with bitter memories 
 of an Adam who had complained, ''The woman . . . 
 she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." And many 
 of us know how, even in our childhood, some blank 
 discontented face on the background of our home, 
 has marred our summer mornings. Why was it, 
 when the birds were singing, when the fields were 
 a garden, and when we were clasping another little 
 hand just larger than our own, there was somebody 
 who found it hard to smile? 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 49 
 [62! 
 
JULY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 There is nothing more widely misleading than 
 sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; 
 and sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and 
 speak from distinct motives, with a consciously 
 proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies 
 on imaginary game. Plotting covetousness and de- 
 liberate contrivance, in order to compass a selfish 
 end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the 
 dramatist: they demand too intense a mental action 
 for many of our fellow-parishioners to be guilty 
 of them. It is easy enough to spoil the lives of our 
 neighbors without taking so much trouble; we can 
 do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by 
 trivial falsities for which we hardly know a reason, 
 by small frauds neutralized by small extravagances, 
 by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised 
 insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most 
 of us, with a small family of immediate desires; 
 we do little else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the 
 hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the 
 next year's crop. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. I, Ch. 3 
 
 63 
 
AUGUST FIRST 
 
 WHAT scene was ever commonplace in the de- 
 scending sunlight, when color has awakened 
 from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe 
 us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene 
 is commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene 
 gladness, and brightens all things with its own joy? 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 26 
 AUGUST SECOND 
 
 It's the flesh and blood folks are made on as 
 makes the difference. Some cheeses are made 
 o' skimmed milk and some o' new milk, and it's no 
 matter what you call 'em, you may tell which is 
 which by the look and the smell. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 8 
 AUGUST THIRD 
 
 Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those 
 in which there is much agreement, much disputation, 
 and yet more personal liking. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 10 
 AUGUST FOURTH 
 
 There's enormous patience wanted with the way 
 of the world. But it is easier for a man to wait 
 patiently when he has friends who love him, and 
 ask for nothing better than to help him through, 
 so far as it lies in their power. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 63 
 
 [65] 
 
AUGUST FIFTH 
 
 The troublesome ones in a family are usually 
 either the wits or the idiots. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 32 
 
 AUGUST SIXTH 
 
 Oh, there's pleasure in knowing one's not a fool, 
 like half the people one sees about. And managing 
 one's husband is some pleasure; and doing all one's 
 business well. Why, if I've only got some orange 
 flowers to candy, I shouldn't like to die till I see 
 them all right. Then there's the sunshine now and 
 then; I like that as the cats do. I look upon it, life 
 is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife 
 come to the still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy 
 the game much, but I like to play my cards well, 
 and see what will be the end of it. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 1 
 
 AUGUST SEVENTH 
 
 It is a little too trying to human flesh to be 
 conscious of expressing one's self better than others 
 and never to have it noticed, and in the general 
 dearth of admiration for the right thing, even a 
 chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is 
 rather fortifying. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 46 
 
 AUGUST EIGHTH 
 
 Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot 
 out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin 
 by which we see the blot? I know no speck so 
 troublesome as self. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 42 
 [661 
 
AUGUST NINTH 
 
 What honor has a man with double bonds? 
 
 Honor is shifting as the shadows are 
 
 To souls that turn their passions into laws. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 
 AUGUST TENTH 
 
 A full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters 
 even in the rain, when they are worse than useless; 
 and a fine fount of admonition is apt to be equally 
 irrepressible. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 13 
 
 AUGUST ELEVENTH 
 
 To have a mind well oiled with that sort of argu- 
 ment which prevents any claim from grasping it, 
 seems eminently convenient sometimes; only the 
 oil becomes objectionable when we find it anointing 
 other minds on which we want to establish a hold. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 63 
 
 AUGUST TWELFTH 
 
 A widow at fifty-five whose satisfaction has been 
 largely drawn from what she thinks of her own 
 person, and what she believes others think of it, 
 requires a great fund of imagination to keep her 
 spirits buoyant. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 51 
 
 AUGUST THIRTEENTH 
 
 "Yes," said Maggie. *'It is with me as I used 
 to think it would be with the poor uneasy white 
 bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have 
 got so stupid with the habit of turning backwards 
 
 [67] 
 
and forwards in that narrow space, that he would 
 keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad 
 habit of being unhappy." 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VI, Ch. 2 
 
 AUGUST FOURTEENTH 
 
 The destructive spirit tends towards completeness; 
 and any object once maimed or otherwise injured, 
 is as readily doomed by unreasoning men as by 
 unreasoning boys. 
 
 Fdix Holt, Ch. 33 
 
 AUGUST FIFTEENTH 
 
 I would change with nobody, madam. And if 
 troubles were put up to market, I'd sooner buy old 
 than new. It's something to have seen the worst. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 39 
 AUGUST SIXTEENTH 
 
 To judge wisely I suppose we must know how 
 things appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance 
 making the larger part of the world's history. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 29 
 
 AUGUST SEVENTEENTH 
 
 The pond said to the ocean, "Why do you rage so? 
 The wind is not so very violent — nay, it is already 
 fallen. Look at me. I rose into no foaming waves, 
 and am already smooth again." 
 
 Leaves from a Note-Book 
 
 AUGUST EIGHTEENTH 
 
 What we see exclusively we are apt to see with 
 some mistake of proportions. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 44 
 
 [681 
 
AUGUST NINETEENTH 
 
 There had sprung up in him a meditative yearning 
 after wide knowledge which is likely always to 
 abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in 
 narrow tracts. Happily he was modest, and took 
 any second-rateness in himself simply as a fact, not 
 as a marvel necessarily to be accounted for by a 
 superiority. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. i6 
 
 AUGUST TWENTIETH 
 
 There is no short cut, no patent tram-road, to 
 wisdom: after all the centuries of invention, the 
 soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which 
 must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, 
 with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old 
 time. 
 
 The Lifted Veil, Ch. i 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 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. . . . 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. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 73 
 AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 The common people are not quite so stupid as 
 you imagine. The commonest man, who has his 
 
 [69I 
 
ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the differ- 
 ence between a lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse 
 one. Even a dog feels a difference in their presence. 
 The man may be no better able than the dog to 
 explain the influence the more refined beauty has 
 on him, but he feels it. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 25 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 I cleave 
 To nature's blunders, evanescent types 
 Which sages banish from Utopia. 
 "Not worship beauty?" say you. Patience, friend! 
 I worship in the temple with the rest; 
 But by my hearth I keep a sacred nook 
 For gnomes and dwarfs, duck-footed waddling elves 
 Who stitched and hammered for the weary man 
 In days of old. 
 
 A Minor Prophet 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Life's a vast sea 
 That does its mighty errand without fail, 
 Panting in unchanged strength though waves are 
 changing. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 He had the energetic will and muscle, the self- 
 confidence, the quick perception, and the narrow 
 imagination which make what is admiringly called 
 the practical mind. 
 
 Fdix Holt, Ch. 8 
 [70] 
 
AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 I have known persons who have been suspected 
 of undervaluing gratitude, and excluding it from 
 the list of virtues; but on closer observation it has 
 been seen that, if they have never felt grateful, it 
 has been for want of an opportunity; and that, far 
 from despising gratitude, they regard it as the virtue 
 most of all incumbent — on others towards them. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 17 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 The same substance, we know, will exhibit differ- 
 ent qualities under different tests; and, after all, 
 imperfect reports of individual impressions, whether 
 immediate or traditional, are a very frail basis on 
 which to build our opinion of a man. One's character 
 may be very indifferently mirrored in the mind of 
 the most intimate neighbor; it all depends on the 
 quality of that gentleman's reflecting surface. 
 
 Essays: Worldliness and Other-W orldiness 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 The general conviction that we are admirable 
 does not easily give way before a single negative; 
 rather when any of Vanity's large family, male or 
 female, find their performance received coldly, they 
 are apt to believe that a little more of it will win 
 over the unaccountable dissident. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. i 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH 
 Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 13 
 
 [71] 
 
AUGUST THIRTIETH 
 
 *'It drives me past patience," said Priscilla, im- 
 petuously, " that way o' the men — always wanting 
 and wanting, and never easy with what they've 
 got: they can't sit comfortable in their chairs when 
 they've neither ache nor pain, but either they must 
 stick a pipe in their mouths, to make 'em better 
 than well, or else they must be swallowing something 
 strong, though they're forced to make haste before 
 the next meal comes in." 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 17 
 
 AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Favorable Chance is the god of all men who follow 
 their own devices instead of obeying a law they 
 believe in. Let even a polished man of these days 
 get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his 
 mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may 
 deliver him from the calculable results of that posi- 
 tion. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the 
 resolute honest work that brings wages, and he 
 will presently find himself dreaming of a possible 
 benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled 
 into using his interest, a possible state of mind in 
 some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let 
 him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he 
 will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that 
 the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the 
 supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's 
 confidence, and he will adore that same cunning 
 complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope 
 that his friend will never know. Let him forsake 
 
 [72] 
 
a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities 
 of a profession to which nature never called him, 
 and his religion will infallibly be the worship of 
 blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the 
 mighty creator of success. The evil principle dep- 
 recated in that religion, is the orderly sequence 
 by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. g 
 
 73 1 
 
^eptemtier 
 
 SEPTEMBER FIRST 
 
 ALL beauteous existence rests, yet wakes, 
 Lies still, yet conscious, with clear open eyes 
 And gentle breath and mild suffused joy. 
 'Tis day, but day that falls like melody 
 Repeated on a string with graver tones — 
 Tones such as linger in a long farewell. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 SEPTEMBER SECOND 
 
 A wise man, more than two thousand years ago, 
 when he was asked what would most tend to lessen 
 injustice in the world, said, "That every bystander 
 should feel as indignant at a wrong as if he himself 
 were the sufferer." Let us cherish such indignation. 
 But the long-growing evils of a great nation are a 
 tangled business, asking for a good deal more than 
 indignation in order to be got rid of. Indignation 
 is a fine war-horse, but the war-horse must be ridden 
 by a man: it must be ridden by rationality, skill, 
 courage, armed with the right weapons, and taking 
 definite aim. 
 
 Essays: Address to Working Men by Felix Holt 
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRD 
 
 "I'll tell you what's the greatest power under 
 heaven," said Felix, "and that is public opinion — 
 the ruling belief in society about what is right and 
 
 [7Sl 
 
what is wrong, what is honorable and what is shame- 
 ful. That's the steam that is to work the engines. 
 How can poHtical freedom make us better, any- 
 more than a religion we don't believe in, if people 
 laugh and wink when they see men abuse and defile 
 it? And while pubjic opinion is what it is — while 
 men have no better beliefs about public duty — while 
 corruption is not felt to be a damning disgrace — 
 while men are not ashamed in Parliament and out 
 of it to make public questions which concern the 
 welfare of millions a mere screen for their own petty 
 private ends, — I say, no fresh scheme of voting 
 will much mend our condition.'* 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 30 
 
 SEPTEMBER FOURTH 
 
 It is all pretence to say that there is no such thing 
 as Class Interest. It is clear that if any particular 
 number of men get a particular benefit from any 
 existing institution, they are likely to band together, 
 in order to keep up that benefit and increase it, 
 until it is perceived to be unfair and injurious to 
 another large number, who get knowledge and 
 strength enough to set up a resistance. And this, 
 again, has been part of the history of every great 
 society since history began. But the simple reason 
 for this being, that any large body of men is likely 
 to have more of stupidity, narrowness, and greed 
 than of far-sightedness and generosity, it is plain 
 that the number who resist unfairness and injury 
 are in danger of becoming injurious in their turn. 
 Essays: Address to Working Men by Felix Holt 
 
 [76] 
 
SEPTEMBER FIFTH 
 
 My work is mine, 
 And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked 
 I should rob God — since He is fullest good. 
 
 Stradivarius 
 
 SEPTEMBER SIXTH 
 
 I can't abide to see men throw away their tools 
 i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, 
 as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was 
 afraid o' doing a stroke too much. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. i 
 
 SEPTEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 A foreman, if he's got a conscience, and delights 
 in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a 
 partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud 
 drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay 
 for it. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. i6 
 
 SEPTEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was 
 shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd 
 never a bit o' pride and delight in 's work. The very 
 grindstone 'uU go on turning a bit after you loose it. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. i 
 
 SEPTEMBER NINTH 
 
 The more knowledge a man has, the better he'll 
 do 's work; and feehng's a sort o' knowledge. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. $2 
 
 [77I 
 
SEPTEMBER TENTH 
 
 I'd sooner ha' brewin' day and washin' day 
 together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's 
 no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not 
 rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and 
 keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' 
 market-day for fear people shouldna think you 
 civil enough. An' you've nothing to show for't 
 when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' 
 things as disagree. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 26 
 
 SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 Of course, men know best about everything, ex- 
 cept what women know better. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 72 
 
 Men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of 
 a muchness. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 31 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 There is no escape from sordidness but by being 
 free from money-craving, with all its base hopes 
 and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted 
 requests, its horse-dealer's desire to make bad work 
 pass for good, its seeking for function which ought 
 to be another's, its compulsion often to long for 
 Luck in the shape of a wide calamity. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 64 
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 Our sense of duty must often wait for some work 
 which shall take the place of dilettanteism and 
 
 [78] 
 
make us feel that the quality of our action is not a 
 matter of indifference. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 46 
 
 SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 Are there many situations more sublimely tragic 
 than the struggle of the soul with the demand to 
 renounce a work which has been all the significance 
 of its life — a significance which is to vanish as the 
 waters which come and go where no man has need 
 of them? 
 
 Middlemarch y Ch. 42 
 
 SEPTEMBER FI^HTEENTH 
 
 In all failures, the beginning is certainly the 
 half of the whole. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 31 
 
 SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 Many things are true which only the commonest 
 minds observe. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 5 
 
 SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to 
 say you have no opinion to give. And if you de- 
 liver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do 
 it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowl- 
 edge. You make it your own in uttering it, and 
 naturally get fond of it. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. I, Ch. 3 
 
 SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Unscrupulousness gets rid of much, but not of 
 toothache, or wounded vanity, or the sense of 
 
 [79] 
 
loneliness, against which, as the world at present 
 stands, there is no security but a thoroughly 
 healthy jaw, and a just, loving soul. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 31 
 
 SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH 
 
 The stronger will always rule, say some, with an 
 air of confidence which is like a lawyer's flourish, 
 forbidding exceptions or additions. But what is 
 strength? Is it blind wilfulness that sees no ter- 
 rors, no many-linked consequences, no bruises and 
 wounds of those whose cords it tightens? Is it the 
 narrowness of a brain that conceives no needs differ- 
 ing from its own, and looks to no results beyond 
 the bargains of to-day; that tugs with emphasis for 
 every small purpose, and thinks it weakness to 
 exercise the sublime power of resolved renunciation? 
 There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar 
 heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is 
 often only another name for willing bondage to 
 irremediable weakness. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 6 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 The fact is, there are not many easy lots to be 
 drawn in the world at present; and such as they are 
 I am not envious of them, I don't say life is not 
 worth having: it is worth having to a man who has 
 some sparks of sense and feeling and bravery in him. 
 And the finest fellow of all would be the one who 
 could be glad to have lived because the world was 
 chiefly miserable, and his life had come to help 
 fSol 
 
some one who needed it. He would be the man who 
 had the most powers and the fewest selfish wants. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 27 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze 
 out of him in his will; . . . and if a fellow has 
 any spite or tyranny in him, he's likely to bottle 
 off a good deal for keeping in that sort of document. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 59 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 The Squire's 'cute enough, but it takes something 
 else besides 'cuteness to make folks see what'U 
 be their interest in the long-run. It takes some 
 conscience and belief in right and wrong, I see that 
 pretty clear. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 21 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Half the sorrows of women would be averted if 
 they could repress the speech they know to be 
 useless — nay, the speech they have resolved not 
 to utter. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 2 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 ''A woman doesn't like a man who tells her the 
 truth." 
 
 *'I think you boast a little too much of your 
 truth-telling, Mr. Holt," said Esther. "That 
 virtue is ipt to be easy to people when they only 
 wound others and not themselves. Telling the 
 truth often means no more than taking a liberty." 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 10 
 
 [81] 
 
SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 We judge others according to results; how else? — 
 not knowing the process by which results are arrived 
 at. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Ch. 2 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means 
 — one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going 
 astray, whereas people of fortune may naturally 
 indulge in a few delinquencies. "They've got the 
 money for it," as the girl said of her mistress who had 
 made herself ill with pickled salmon. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 25 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 I fall 
 Into short-sighted pity for the men 
 Who living in those perfect future times 
 Will not know half the dear imperfect things 
 That move my smiles and tears — will never know 
 The fine old incongruities that raise 
 My friendly laugh; the innocent conceits 
 That like a needless eyeglass or black patch. 
 Give those who wear them harmless happiness. 
 
 A Minor Prophet 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 I have all my life had a sympathy for mongrel 
 ungainly dogs, who are nobody's pets; and I would 
 rather surprise one of them by a pat and a pleasant 
 morsel, than meet the condescending advances of 
 the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by 
 [82I 
 
my lady's chair. That, to be sure, is not the 
 way of the world: if it happens to see a fellow of 
 fine proportions and aristocratic mien, who makes 
 no faux pas, and wins golden opinions from all sorts 
 of men, it straightway picks out for him the loveliest 
 of unmarried women, and says. There would be a 
 proper match! Not at all, say I: let that successful, 
 well-shapen, discreet, and able gentleman put up 
 with something less than the best in the matrimonial 
 department; and let the sweet woman go to make 
 sunshine and a soft pillow for the poor devil whose 
 legs are not models, whose efforts are often blunders, 
 and who in general gets more kicks than halfpence. 
 
 Amos Barton, Ch. 2 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. 
 Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us to- 
 gether by bone and muscle, and divides us by the 
 subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and 
 repulsion; and ties us by our heartstrings to the 
 beings that jar us at every movement. We hear a 
 voice with the very cadence of our own uttering 
 the thoughts we despise; we see eyes — ah! so like 
 our mother's — averted from us in cold alienation; 
 and our last darling child startles us with the airs 
 and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitter- 
 ness long years ago. The father to whom we owe 
 our best heritage — the mechanical instinct, the 
 keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill 
 of the modelling hand — galls us, and puts us to 
 shame by his daily errors; the long-lost mother, 
 
 [83] 
 
whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own 
 wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with 
 her anxious humors and irrational persistence. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 4 
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 Conscience is harder than our enemies, 
 Knows more, accuses with more nicety, 
 Nor needs to question Rumor if we fall 
 Below the perfect model of our thought. 
 I fear no outward arbiter. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk, I 
 
 84 
 
flDctober 
 
 OCTOBER FIRST 
 
 A BOY'S sheepishness is by no means a sign of 
 overmastering reverence; and while you are 
 making encouraging advances to him under the idea 
 that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and 
 wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely 
 queer. The only consolation I can suggest to you is, 
 that the Greek boys probably thought the same of 
 Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a 
 restive horse, or thrashed a drayman, or have got a 
 gun in your hand, that these shy juniors feel you to 
 be a truly admirable and enviable character. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. /, Ch. 9 
 OCTOBER SECOND 
 
 Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, 
 abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact — 
 from calling on us to look through a heap of millet- 
 seed in order to be sure that there is no pearl in it. 
 
 Theophrastus Such, Ch. 4 
 OCTOBER THIRD 
 
 When we are suddenly released from an acute 
 absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap 
 out in new freedom; we think even the noise of 
 streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the 
 tradesman who is wrapping up our change. 
 
 JaneCs Repentance, Ch. 22 
 
 [85] 
 
OCTOBER FOURTH 
 
 The exhaustion consequent on violent emotion is 
 apt to bring a dreamy disbelief in the reality of its 
 
 cause. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 36 
 
 OCTOBER FIFTH 
 
 A diffident man likes the idea of doing something 
 remarkable, which will create belief in him without 
 any immediate display of brilliancy. Celebrity may 
 blush and be silent, and win a grace the more. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 23 
 
 OCTOBER SIXTH 
 
 We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our 
 attempts at display. We may be sure of our own 
 merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from 
 which we are regarded by our neighbor. Our fine 
 patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him 
 into a swoon of admiration, though we turn our- 
 selves all round to show them. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 11 
 
 OCTOBER SEVENTH 
 
 ''All choice of words is slang. It marks a class.'* 
 
 ''There is correct EngHsh: that is not slang." 
 
 "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang 
 
 of prigs who write history and essays. And the 
 
 strongest slang of all is the slang of poets." 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 11 
 
 OCTOBER EIGHTH 
 
 Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a 
 raft, or duly escorted and accompanied by port- 
 [86] 
 
manteaus, have always had a circumstantial fascina- 
 tion for the virgin mind, against which native merit 
 has urged itself in vain. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 12 
 
 OCTOBER NINTH 
 
 People who live at a distance are naturally less 
 faulty than those immediately under our own eyes; 
 and it seems superfluous, when we consider the 
 remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and 
 how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to 
 inquire further why Homer calls them ''blameless.'* 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. Ill, Ch. 3 
 
 OCTOBER TENTH 
 
 Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors' 
 lot are but the background of our own; yet, like 
 a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they 
 become associated for us with the epochs of our 
 own history, and make a part of that unity which 
 lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 34 
 
 OCTOBER ELEVENTH 
 
 The soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will 
 bear you all sorts of poisonous toadstools, and no 
 eye can see whence came the seed thereof. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 40 
 
 OCTOBER TWELFTH 
 
 The driest argument has its hallucinations, too 
 hastily concluding that its net will not at last be 
 large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream 
 in demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world 
 
 [87] 
 
in the shape of axioms, definitions, and propositions, 
 with a final exclusion of fact signed Q. E. D. No 
 formulas for thinking will save us mortals from 
 mistake in our imperfect apprehension of the matter 
 to be thought about. And since the unemotional 
 intellect may carry us into a mathematical dream- 
 land where nothing is but what is not, perhaps 
 an emotional intellect may have absorbed into its 
 passionate vision of possibilities some truth of what 
 will be — the more comprehensive massive life 
 feeding theory with new material, as the sensibility 
 of the artist seizes combinations which science 
 explains and justifies. At any rate, presumptions 
 to the contrary are not to be trusted. We must be 
 patient with the inevitable makeshift of our human 
 thinking, whether in its sum total or in the sepa- 
 rate minds that have made the sum. Columbus 
 had some impressions about himself which we call 
 superstitions, and used some arguments which we 
 disapprove; but he had also some true physical 
 conceptions, and he had the passionate patience 
 of genius to make them tell on mankind. The 
 world has made up its mind rather contemptuously 
 about those who were deaf to Columbus. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 41 
 
 OCTOBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 If we use common words on a great occasion, they 
 are the more striking, because they are felt at once 
 to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or 
 everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VI, Ch. 2 
 
OCTOBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims 
 is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory 
 of great workers who had to fight their way not 
 without wounds, and who hover in his mind as 
 patron saints, invisibly helping. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 45 
 
 OCTOBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 A man with the milk of human kindness in him 
 can scarcely abstain from doing a good-natured 
 action, and one cannot be good-natured all round. 
 Nature herself occasionally quarters an inconvenient 
 parasite on an animal towards whom she has other- 
 wise no ill-will. What then? We admire her care 
 for the parasite. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. /, Ch. 3 
 
 OCTOBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 Since they could remember, there had been a 
 mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude of 
 Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger 
 had always worn a yoke; but is there any yoked 
 creature without its private opinions? 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. i 
 
 OCTOBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 But it is one thing to Hke defiance, and another 
 thing to like its consequences. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 46 
 
 OCTOBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Lydgate was in debt; and he could not succeed 
 in keeping out of his mind for long together that he 
 
 [89] 
 
was every day getting deeper into that swamp, 
 which tempts men towards it with such a pretty 
 covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful 
 how soon a man gets up to his chin there — in a 
 condition in which, spite of himself, he is forced 
 to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of 
 the universe in his soul. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 58 
 
 OCTOBER NINETEENTH 
 
 Who can know how much of his most inward life 
 is made up of the thoughts he beheves other men to 
 have about him, until that fabric of opinion is 
 threatened with ruin? 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 68 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTIETH 
 
 People glorify all sorts of bravery except the 
 bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest 
 neighbors. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 72 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 But I wasn't worth doing wrong for — nothing 
 is in this world. Nothing is so good as it seems 
 beforehand. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 18 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 There is a sort of human paste that when it comes 
 near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into 
 harder shape. 
 
 Daniel Dcronda, Ch. 42 
 
 [90] 
 
OCTOBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Much of our lives is spent in marring our own 
 influence and turning others' beHef in us into a 
 widely concluding unbelief which they call knowledge 
 of the world, while it is really disappointment in 
 
 ^ ' Daniel Deronda, Ch. 64 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 It is to be beheved that attendance at the opera 
 bouffe in the present day would not leave men's 
 minds entirely without shock, if the manners 
 observed there with some applause were suddenly 
 to start up in their own families. Perspective, as 
 its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What 
 horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, 
 may not become picturesque through aerial distance! 
 What hymning of cancerous vices may we not 
 languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness 
 of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet 
 we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other 
 painful effects when presented in our personal 
 
 ^ * Daniel Deronda, Ch. 14 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Milk and mildness are not the best things for 
 keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they 
 may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I 
 have often wondered whether those early Madonnas 
 of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat 
 stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed 
 when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got 
 a little too old to do without clothing. I think they 
 
 [91] 
 
must have been given to feeble remonstrance, 
 getting more and more peevish as it became more 
 and more ineffectual. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. I, Ch. 2 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 A man with a definite will and an energetic per- 
 sonality acts as a sort of flag to draw and bind 
 together the fooUsh units of a mob. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 23 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 The persons who are the most incapable of a 
 conscientious struggle are precisely those who will 
 be likely to shrink from you, because they will not 
 believe in your struggle. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VII, Ch. 2 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 It is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly 
 made: an intense feeling about ourselves which 
 makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, 
 and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. And 
 superstitions carry consequences which often verify 
 their hope of their foreboding. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 29 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 There has been no great people without proces- 
 sions, and the man who thinks himself too wise to be 
 moved by them to anything but contempt, is like 
 the puddle that was proud of standing alone while 
 the river rushed by. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 8 
 
 I92] 
 
OCTOBER THIRTIETH 
 
 Our consciences are not all of the same pattern, 
 an inner deliverance of fixed laws: they are the voice 
 of sensibilities as various as our memories (which 
 also have their kinship and likeness). 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 41 
 
 OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Now awful Night, 
 The prime ancestral mystery, came down. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. IV 
 
 Life is not rounded in an epigram. 
 
 And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. 2 
 
 93] 
 
BoUmhtv 
 
 NOVEMBER FIRST 
 
 THERE is a law in music, disobedience where- 
 unto would bring us in our singing to the level 
 of shrieking maniacs or howling beasts : so that herein 
 we are well instructed how true liberty can be naught 
 but the transfer of obedience from the will of one 
 or of a few men to that will which is the norm or 
 rule for all men. And though the transfer may 
 sometimes be but an erroneous direction of search, 
 yet is the search good and necessary to the ultimate 
 finding. And even as in music, where all obey and 
 concur to one end, so that each has the joy of con- 
 tributing to a whole whereby he is ravished and 
 lifted up into the courts of heaven, so will it be in 
 that crowning time of the millennial reign, when 
 our daily prayer will be fulfilled, and one law shall 
 be written on all hearts, and be the very structure 
 of all thought, and be the principle of all action. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 13 
 
 NOVEMBER SECOND 
 
 To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern 
 that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to 
 feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with 
 finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion — 
 a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously 
 into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of 
 
 [95] 
 
knowledge. One may have that condition by fits 
 only. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 22 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRD 
 
 'Tis a vile life that like a garden pool 
 
 Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves: 
 
 That has no ear save for the tickUng lute 
 
 Set to small measures — deaf to all the beats 
 
 Of that large music rolling o'er the world: 
 
 A miserable, petty, low-roofed life, 
 
 That knows the mighty orbits of the skies 
 
 Through naught save light or dark in its own cabin. 
 
 The very brutes will feel the force of kind 
 
 And move together, gathering a new soul — 
 
 The soul of multitudes. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 NOVEMBER FOURTH 
 
 No man has too much talent to be a musician. 
 Most men have too httle. A creative artist is no 
 more a mere musician than a great statesman is a 
 mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, 
 sir, who Hve in a box and look out on the world 
 only when it is gaping for amusement. We help 
 to rule the nations and make the age as much as 
 any other public men. We count ourselves on 
 level benches with legislators. And a man who 
 speaks effectively through music is compelled to 
 something more difficult than parliamentary elo- 
 quence. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 22 
 
 [06] 
 
NOVEMBER FIFTH 
 
 We are all of us made more graceful by the in- 
 ward presence of what we believe to be a generous 
 purpose; our actions move to a hidden music — '^a 
 melody that's sweetly played in tune." 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 45 
 
 NOVEMBER SIXTH 
 Full souls are double mirrors, making still 
 An endless vista of fair things before 
 Repeating things behind: so faith is strong 
 Only when we are strong, shrinks when we shrink. 
 It comes when music stirs us, and the chords 
 Moving on some grand climax shake our souls 
 With influx new that makes new energies. 
 It comes in swellings of the heart and tears 
 That rise at noble and at gentle deeds — 
 At labors of the master-artist's hand 
 Which, trembling, touches to a finer end. 
 Trembling before an image seen within. 
 It comes in moments of heroic love, 
 Un jealous joy in joy not made for us — 
 In conscious triumph of the good within 
 Making us worship goodness that rebukes. 
 
 A Minor Prophet 
 
 NOVEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 Blessed influence of one true loving human soul 
 on another! Not calculable by algebra, not de- 
 ducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty 
 as the hidden process by which the tiny seed is 
 quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem and broad 
 leaf, and glowing tasselled flower. Ideas are often 
 
 1971 
 
poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; 
 they pass athwart us in thin vapor, and cannot make 
 themselves felt. But sometimes they are made 
 flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they 
 touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at 
 us with sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing 
 tones; they are clothed in a living human soul, 
 with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then 
 their presence is a power, then they shake us like 
 a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle 
 compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 20 
 
 NOVEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 That idea of duty, that recognition of something 
 to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of 
 self, ... is to the moral life what the addition of 
 a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man 
 can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea 
 without rising to a higher order of experience: a 
 principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has 
 been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a 
 mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses. 
 Whatever might be the weaknesses of the ladies who 
 pruned the luxuriance of their lace and ribbons, 
 cut out garments for the poor, distributed tracts, 
 quoted Scripture, and defined the true Gospel, 
 they had learned this — that there was a divine work 
 to be done in life, a rule of goodness higher than the 
 opinion of their neighbors; and if the notion of a 
 heaven in reserve for themselves was a little too 
 prominent, yet the theory of fitness for that heaven 
 
consisted in purity of heart, in Christlike compassion, 
 in the subduing of selfish desires. They might give 
 the name of piety to much that was only puritanic 
 egoism; they might call many things sin that were not 
 sin; but they had at least the feeling that sin was 
 to be avoided and resisted, and color-blindness 
 which may mistake drab for scarlet, is better than 
 total blindness, which sees no distinction of color 
 at all. 
 
 Janet's Repentance y Ch. lo 
 
 NOVEMBER NINTH 
 
 A man's a man; 
 But when you see a king, you see the work 
 Of many thousand men. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. I 
 
 NOVEMBER TENTH 
 
 Indeed, what mortal is there of us, who would 
 find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of 
 comparing the picture he presents to himself of 
 his own doings, with the picture they make on the 
 mental retina of his neighbors? We are poor plants 
 buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: 
 alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us 
 of that windy self-subsistence! The very capacity 
 for good would go out of us. For, tell the most 
 impassioned orator, suddenly, that his wig is awry, 
 or his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tickling 
 people by the oddity of his person, instead of thrilling 
 them by the energy of his periods, and you would 
 infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That 
 
 [99] 
 
is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be 
 wrought without faith — without the worker's 
 faith in himself, as well as the recipient's faith in 
 him. And the greater part of the worker's faith in 
 himself is made up of the faith that others believe 
 in him. 
 
 Let me be persuaded that my neighbor Jenkins 
 considers me a blockhead, and I shall never shine 
 in conversation with him any more. Let me dis- 
 cover that the lovely Phoebe thinks my squint 
 intolerable, and I shall never be able to fix her 
 blandly with my disengaged eye again. 
 
 Thank heaven, then, that a little illusion is left 
 to us, to enable us to be useful and agreeable — that 
 we don't know exactly what our friends think of us — 
 that the world is not made of looking-glass, to show 
 us just the figure we are making, and just what is 
 going on behind our backs! By the help of dear 
 friendly illusion, we are able to dream that we are 
 charming — and our faces wear a becoming air of 
 self-possession; we are able to dream that other 
 men admire our talents — and our benignity is 
 undisturbed ; we are able to dream that we are doing 
 much good — and we do a little. 
 
 Amos Barton, Ch. 2 
 
 NOVEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 For strong souls 
 Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength 
 In farthest striving action; breathe more free 
 In mighty anguish than in trivial ease. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. IV 
 [100] 
 
NOVEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 "Nothing," says Goethe, "is more significant of 
 men's character than what they find laughable." The 
 truth of this observation would perhaps have been 
 more apparent if he had said culture instead of 
 character. The last thing in which the cultivated 
 man can have community with the vulgar is their 
 jocularity; and we can hardly exhibit more strikingly 
 the wide gulf which separates him from them than 
 by comparing the object which shakes the dia- 
 phragm of a coal-heaver with the highly complex 
 pleasure derived from a real witticism. 
 
 Essays: German Wit 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed 
 merriment which passes for humor with the vulgar. 
 In their fun they have much resemblance to a 
 turkey-cock. It has a cruel beak, and a silly itera- 
 tion of ugly sounds; it spreads its tail in self- 
 glorification, but shows you the wrong side of that 
 ornament — liking admiration, but knowing not 
 what is admirable. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 12, Motto 
 
 NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 If we demand more leisure, more ease in our lives, 
 let us show that we don't deserve the reproach of 
 wanting to shirk that industry which, in some form 
 or other, every man, whether rich or poor, should 
 feel himself as much bound to as he is bound to 
 decency. Let us show that we want to have some 
 time and strength left to us, that we may use it, 
 
 [lOl] 
 
not for brutal indulgence, but for the rational exer- 
 cise of the faculties which make us men. 
 
 Essays: Address to Working Men by Felix Holt 
 
 NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 Perhaps the moment of most diffusive pleasure 
 from public speaking is that in which the speech 
 ceases and the audience can turn to commenting on 
 it. The one speech, sometimes uttered under great 
 responsibility as to missiles and other consequences, 
 has given a text to twenty speakers who are under 
 no responsibility. Even in the days of duelling a 
 man was not challenged for being a bore, nor does 
 this quality apparently hinder him from being much 
 invited to dinner, which is the great index of social 
 responsibility in a less barbarous age. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 19 
 
 NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 Emotion links itself with particulars, and only 
 in a faint and secondary manner with abstractions. 
 An orator may discourse very eloquently on injustice 
 in general, and leave his audience cold; but let him 
 state a special case of oppression, and every heart 
 will throb. The most untheoretic persons are aware 
 of this relation between true emotion and particular 
 facts, as opposed to general terms, and impHcitly 
 recognize it in the repulsion they feel towards any 
 one who professes strong feeling about abstractions, 
 — in the interjectional "Humbug!" which imme- 
 diately rises to their lips. 
 
 Essays: Worldliness and Other-Worldliness 
 I 102 ] 
 
NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 The secret of oratory lies, not in saying new things, 
 but in saying things with a certain power that moves 
 the hearers. 
 
 Romola, Ch. i6 
 
 NOVEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Hopes have precarious Hfe. 
 They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer ofl 
 In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness. 
 But faithfulness can feed on suffering, 
 And knows no disappointment. Trust in me ! 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. Ill 
 
 NOVEMBER NINETEENTH 
 
 A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds 
 a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, 
 easily comes to persuade himself that no other 
 woman would have suited him so well, and does a 
 little daily snapping and quarrelling without any 
 sense of alienation. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. I, Ch. 12 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 Those who have been indulged by fortune and have 
 always thought of calamity as what happens to 
 others, feel a blind, incredulous rage at the reversal 
 of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries 
 will alter the course of the storm. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 61 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that 
 needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better 
 [103] 
 
than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they 
 do that in a poor makeshift way; it had better ha' 
 been left to the men. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 21 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 ''But it is very difficult to be learned; it seems 
 as if people were worn out on the way to great 
 thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they 
 are too tired." 
 
 "If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he 
 is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit," 
 said Will, with irrepressible quickness. 
 
 Middletnarch, Ch. 37 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 I feel so set up and comfortable as niver was, 
 when I've been and heard the prayers, and the 
 singing to the praise and glory o' God, as Mr. Macey 
 gives out — and Mr. Crackenthorp saying good 
 words, and more partic'lar on Sacramen' Day; 
 and if a bit o' trouble comes, I feel as I can put up 
 wi' it, for I've looked for help i' the right quarter, 
 and gev myself up to Them as we must all give our- 
 selves up to at the last; and if we'n done our part, 
 it isn't to be believed as Them as are above us 'ull 
 be worse nor we are, and come short o' Their'n. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 10 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to 
 comfort our neighbors with our words is that our 
 good- will gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, 
 [ 104] 
 
before it can pass our lips. We can send black 
 puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavor 
 of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is 
 almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. lo 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 There is no sorrow I have thought more about 
 than that — to love what is great, and try to reach 
 it, and yet to fail. 
 
 Middlentarch, Ch. 76 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Does any one suppose that private prayer is 
 necessarily candid — necessarily goes to the roots 
 of action? Private prayer is inaudible speech, and 
 speech is representative: who can represent himself 
 just as he is, even in his own reflections? 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 70 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 As to speaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man's 
 sin unless I'm clear it must be done to save the 
 innocent. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 69 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Imagine Jean Jacques, after his essay on the 
 corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among 
 children of nature who had no ideas of grilling the 
 raw bone they offered him for breakfast with the 
 primitive flint knife; or Saint Just, after fervidly 
 denouncing all recognition of preeminence, receiv- 
 ing a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity 
 
 [1051 
 
of his speech, which warranted the dullest patriots 
 in delivering themselves at equal length. ... It 
 is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and 
 keep pace with our winged words, while we are 
 treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy 
 dining. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 22 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 To most mortals there is a stupidity which is 
 unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether 
 acceptable — else, indeed, what would become of 
 social bonds? 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 58 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 Blows are sarcasms turned stupid: wit is a form 
 of force that leaves the limbs at rest. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 30 
 
 [106] 
 
DECEMBER FIRST 
 
 A TALLOW dip, of the long-eight description, is 
 an excellent thing in the kitchen candlestick, 
 and Betty's nose and eye are not sensitive to the 
 difference between it and the finest wax; it is only 
 when you stick it in the silver candlestick, and 
 introduce it into the drawing-room, that it seems 
 plebeian, dim, and ineffectual. Alas for the worthy 
 man who, like the candle, gets himself into the 
 wrong place! It is only the very largest souls who 
 will be able to appreciate and pity him — who will 
 discern and love sincerity of purpose amid all the 
 bungling feebleness of achievement. 
 
 Amos Barton, Ch. 2 
 
 DECEMBER SECOND 
 
 Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which 
 you handle in order to scorch others, may happen to' 
 sear your own fingers and make them dead to the 
 quality of things. 'Tis difficult enough to see our 
 way and keep our torch steady in this dim labyrinth: 
 to whirl the torch and dazzle the eyes of our fellow- 
 seekers is a poor daring, and may end in total 
 darkness. You yourself are a lover of freedom, and 
 a bold rebel against usurping authority. But the 
 right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, 
 
 [107] 
 
and not to wander in mere lawlessness. Wherefore, 
 I beseech you, seem not to say that liberty is license. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 13 
 
 DECEMBER THIRD 
 
 It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are 
 coldly discussing a man's career, sneering at his 
 mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labelling his 
 opinions — "Evangelical and narrow," or ''Latitudi- 
 narian and Pantheistic," or "Anglican and super- 
 cilious" — that man, in his sohtude, is perhaps 
 shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one, 
 because strength and patience are failing him to 
 speak the difficult word, and do the difficult deed. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 8 
 
 DECEMBER FOURTH 
 
 As long as we set up our own will and our own 
 wisdom against God's, we make that wall between 
 us and His love which I have spoken of just now. 
 But as soon as we lay ourselves entirely at His 
 feet, we have enough light given us to guide our 
 own steps; as the foot-soldier who hears nothing 
 'of the councils that determine the course of the 
 great battle he is in, hears plainly enough the word 
 of command which he must himself obey. 
 
 Janet's Repentance, Ch. 18 
 
 DECEMBER FIFTH 
 
 Much quotation of any sort, even in Enghsh, is 
 bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One 
 couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little 
 [108I 
 
blindness to the fact that everything has been said 
 better than we can put it ourselves. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. i6 
 
 DECEMBER SIXTH 
 
 Some one highly susceptible to the contemplation 
 of a fine act has said that it produces a sort of 
 regenerating shudder through the frame, and makes 
 one feel ready to begin a new life. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 66 
 
 DECEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 The tragedy of our lives is not created entirely 
 from within. ''Character," says NovaHs, in one 
 of his questionable aphorisms, — ''character is 
 destiny." But not the whole of our destiny. Ham- 
 let, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irreso- 
 lute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. 
 But if his father had lived to a good old age, and 
 his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive 
 Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got through 
 life with a reputation of sanity, notwithstanding 
 many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards 
 the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the 
 frankest incivility to his father-in-law. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. VI, Ch. 6 
 
 DECEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but 
 when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more 
 harm. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 5 
 [109] 
 
DECEMBER NINTH 
 
 There was a chance, if she had married Sir James, 
 of her becoming a sane, sensible woman. He would 
 never have contradicted her, and when a woman is 
 not contradicted, she has no motive for obstinacy 
 in her absurdities. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 6 
 
 DECEMBER TENTH 
 
 Any one watching keenly the stealthy convergence 
 of human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects 
 from one life on another, which tells Hke a calculated 
 irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with 
 which we look at our unintroduced neighbor. Des- 
 tiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personcB 
 folded in her hand. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. ii 
 
 DECEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 Do we not shun the street version of a fine melody? 
 — or shrink from the news that the rarity — some 
 bit of chiselling or engraving perhaps — which we 
 have dwelt on even with exultation in the trouble 
 it has cost us to snatch glimpses of it, is really not 
 an uncommon thing, and may be obtained as an 
 everyday possession? Our good depends on the 
 quality and breadth of our emotion. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 47 
 
 DECEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 A man vows, and yet will not cast away the 
 
 means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly 
 
 means to break it? Not at all; but the desires 
 
 which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, 
 
 [no] 
 
and make their way into his imagination, and relax 
 his muscles in the very moments when he is telling 
 himself over again the reasons for his vow. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 70 
 
 DECEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 Men and women make sad mistakes about their 
 own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, 
 sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and 
 oftener still for a mighty love. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 75 
 
 DECEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 In old days there were angels who came and took 
 men by the hand and led them away from the city 
 of destruction. We see no white- winged angels 
 now. But yet men are led away from threatening 
 destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads 
 them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, 
 so that they look no more backward; and the hand 
 may be a little child's. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 14 
 
 DECEMBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 The vindication of the loved object is the best 
 balm affection can find for its wounds: — "A man 
 must have so much on his mind," is the belief by 
 which a wife often supports a cheerful face under 
 rough answers and unfeeling words. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 17 
 
 DECEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 " No, friend, I am not a servant; I am a scholar." 
 There are men to whom you need only say, "I 
 [hi] 
 
am a buffalo," in a certain tone of quiet confidence, 
 and they will let you pass. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 38 
 
 DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Our deeds are like children that are born to us; 
 they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, 
 children may be strangled, but deeds never: they 
 have an indestructible life both in and out of our 
 consciousness. 
 
 Romola, Ch. 16 
 
 DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry 
 their terrible consequences, quite apart from any 
 fluctuations that went before — consequences that 
 are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is 
 best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of 
 considering what may be the elements of excuse 
 for us. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 16 
 
 DECEMBER NINETEENTH 
 
 It is one thing to be resolute in placing one's self 
 out of the question, and another to endure that 
 others should perform that exclusion for us. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ch. 37 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 The energy that would animate a crime is not 
 more than is wanted to inspire a resolved submission, 
 when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 42 
 
 [112] 
 
DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 We are often unable to act on our certainties; 
 our objection to a contrary issue (were it possible) 
 is so strong that it rises like a spectral illusion be- 
 tween us and our certainty: we are rationally sure 
 that the blind-worm cannot bite us mortally, but it 
 would be so intolerable to be bitten, and the creature 
 has a biting look — we decline to handle it. 
 
 Daniel Deronda, Ck. 13 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in 
 those scenes where we were born, where objects 
 became dear to us before we had known the labor 
 of choice, and where the outer world seemed only 
 an extension of our own personality; we accepted 
 and loved it as we accepted our own sense of exist- 
 ence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even 
 ugly, that furniture of our early home might look 
 if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in 
 upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after 
 something better and better in our surroundings 
 the grand characteristic that distinguishes man 
 from the brute, or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy 
 of definition, that distinguishes the British man from 
 the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that 
 striving might lead us, if our affections had not a 
 trick of twining round those old inferior things; 
 if the loves and sanctities of our life had no deep 
 immovable roots in memory. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss, Bk. II, Ch. 2 
 
 \ 113 ] 
 
DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 17 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Christmas puddings, brawn, and abundance 
 of spirituous liquors, throwing the mental original- 
 ity into the channel of nightmare, are great pre- 
 servatives against a dangerous spontaneity of 
 waking thought. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 10 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 But now, upo' Christmas Day, this blessed 
 Christmas as is ever coming, if you was to take your 
 dinner to the bakehus, and go to church, and see 
 the holly and the yew, and hear the anthim, and then 
 take the sacramen', you'd be a deal the better, 
 and you'd know which end you stood on, and you 
 could put your trust i' Them as knows better nor we 
 do, seein' you'd ha' done what it lies on us all to do. 
 
 There's no other music equil to the Christmas 
 music — "Hark the erol angils sing." And you 
 may judge what it is at church, Master Marner, 
 with the bassoon and the voices, as you can't help 
 thinking you've got to a better place a'ready — for 
 I wouldn't speak ill o' this world, seeing as Them 
 put us in it as knows best. 
 
 Silas Marner, Ch. 10 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 I bear in mind this: the Lord knoweth them that 
 are His; but we — we are left to judge by uncertain 
 
 [1141 
 
signs, that so we may learn to exercise hope and 
 faith towards one another; and in this uncertainty 
 I cHng with awful hope to those whom the world 
 loves not because their conscience, albeit mistakenly, 
 is at war with the habits of the world. Our great 
 faith, my Esther, is the faith of martyrs: I will not 
 lightly turn away from any man who endures 
 harshness because he will not He; nay, though I 
 would not wantonly grasp at ease of mind through 
 an arbitrary choice of doctrine, I cannot but believe 
 that the merits of the Divine Sacrifice are wider 
 than our utmost charity. I once believed otherwise 
 — but not now, not now. 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 37 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 "You are thoroughly mistaken," said Felix. 
 *'It is just because I'm a very ambitious fellow, 
 with very hungry passions, wanting a great deal to 
 satisfy me, that I have chosen to give up what 
 people call worldly good. At least that has been 
 one determining reason. It all depends on what a 
 man gets into his consciousness — what life thrusts 
 into his mind, so that it becomes present to him 
 as remorse is present to the guilty, or a mechanical 
 problem to an inventive genius. There are two 
 things I've got present in that way: one of them is 
 the picture of what I should hate to be. I'm de- 
 termined never to go about making my face simper- 
 ing or solemn, and telling professional lies for profit; 
 or to get tangled in affairs where I must wink at 
 dishonesty and pocket the proceeds, and justify 
 [lis] 
 
that knavery as part of a system that I can't alter. 
 If I once went into that sort of struggle for success, 
 I should want to win — I should defend the wrong 
 that I had once identified myself with. I should 
 become everything that I see now beforehand to 
 be detestable. And what's more, I should do this, 
 as men are doing it every day, for a ridiculously 
 small prize — perhaps for none at all — perhaps for 
 the sake of two parlors, a rank eligible for the 
 church wardenship, a discontented wife, and several 
 unhopeful children." 
 
 Felix Holt, Ch. 27 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 I think all lines of the human face have something 
 either touching or grand, unless they seem to come 
 from low passions. How fine old men are, like my 
 godfather! Why should not old women look grand 
 and simple? 
 
 " Romola, Ch. 51 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Youth thinks itself the goal of each old life; 
 Age has but travelled from a far-off time 
 Just to be ready for youth's service. 
 
 Armgart, Sc. $ 
 
 When the commonplace "We must all die" 
 transforms itself suddenly into the acute conscious- 
 ness "I must die — and soon," then death grapples 
 us, and his fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may 
 come to fold us in his arms as our mother did, and 
 
 [1161 
 
our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be 
 like the first. 
 
 Middlemarch, Ch. 42 
 
 DECEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 It's very blessed on a bleak cold day when the sky 
 is hanging dark over the hill, to feel the love of God 
 in one's soul, and carry it to the lonely, bare stone 
 houses, where there's nothing else to give comfort. 
 
 Adam Bede, Ch. 11 
 
 DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Two angels guide 
 The path of man, both aged and yet young. 
 As angels are, ripening through endless years. 
 On one he leans: some call her Memory, 
 And some. Tradition; and her voice is sweet, 
 With deep mysterious accords: the other. 
 Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams 
 A light divine and searching on the earth. 
 Compelling 'eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, 
 Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew 
 Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp 
 Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked 
 But for Tradition; we walk evermore 
 To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp. 
 
 The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. II 
 
 [117] 
 
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. 
 
 May I reach 
 That purest heaven, be to other souls 
 The cup of strength in some great agony, 
 Enkindle generous ardor, 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. 
 
 
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