Kelly’s Reviews > Middlemarch > Status Update

“…like the discovery that your neighbour has set up an unpleasant kind of manufacture which will be permanently under your nostrils without legal remedy.” p359

“…when we have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition:…any one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves.” p360

“…but our tongues are little triggers…usually pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.” p 365

“…had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do, he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing…and all this was to have come without study or other inconvenience purely by the favour of providence.” p342-3

“…an accomplished creature who venerated his high musings and labours and would never interfere with them; who would create order in the home and accounts with magic.” p352

“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.” p332

Mary too, was agitated: she was conscious that fatally, without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to Fred’s lot.” p340

“One is constantly wondering what sort of lives other people lead, and how they take things.” p326

“Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge.” p329

Everything is symbolical you know…but not too far - it’s rather straining to keep up with, you know.” p330

"Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact." p314

"I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life soil the beginning of mine." p316

“He was coming to England to try his fortune, as many other young men were obliged to do whose only capital was in their brains.” p275

“Anyone who imagines ten days is too short a time…is ignorant of what can go on in the elegant leisure of a young lady’s mind.” p300

“Remember that the ambitious man who was looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted and rash.” p301

“…the stifling oppression of that gentlewoman’s world, where everything was done for her and none asked her aid…marriage…had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman’s oppressive liberty.” p274 ❤️

“…and to have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.” p283 😆

“…in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide.” p268

“Really, the men in Middlemarch, except Mr. Farebrother, were great bores, and Lydgate did not care about commercial politics or cards: what was he to do for relaxation?” p268

“…but politeness in a man who has placed you at a disadvantage is only an additional exasperation,…” p261

“But as to Bulstrode - the report may be true of some other son.” p263

“As if it were not very painful to me to see you an idle frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible, when others are working and striving, and there are so many things to be done - how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is useful?” p255

“A woman, let her be as good as she may, has got to put up with the life her husband makes for her.” p257