Abigail > Abigail's Quotes

“I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don't hate her, i do'
Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell , North and South

“How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? What could it be? Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride in spite of herself? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come. But Mr.Thornton-why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaking her at last?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene,- not of his repulse and rejection the day before but the looks, the actions of the day before that. He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them, -almost sick with longing for that one half-hour-that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his-to come once again.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Well, He had known what love was-a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,-all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening—the fall. He could almost have exclaimed—'There it goes, again!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“...yet, even before he left the room, - and certainly, not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life.She crept away, and hid from his idea. But it was of no use”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character - his life.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask him to bless thee.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores, said Margaret.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She thought in would be awkward for both to be brought into conscious collision; and fancied that, from her being on a low seat at first, and now standing behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste. As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Oh dear! A drunken infidel weaver! said Mr. Hale to himself.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her Mother's mind. She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd ha thought that face - as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of - could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sing.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Yet is was very difficult to seperate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Mr. Thornton," said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, "go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor-creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“I have passed out of childhood into old age. I have had no youth - no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for me - for I shall never marry; and I anticipate cares and sorrows just as if I were an old woman, and with the same fearful spirit.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Oh yes!' and suddenly the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and, though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Yet within a miles, Margaret knew of house after house, where she would for her own sake, and her mother for her Aunt Shaw's, would be welcomed, if they came to gladness, or even in peace of mind. If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South