03.03.02 – Sunday
Sometimes I go into bookstores to fortify myself with a few judicious excerpts from favored novels, viz.:
- ‘Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected’ (Pride & Prejudice, ch. 45).
- ‘We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, ‘Oh, nothing!’ Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts—not to hurt others’ (Middlemarch, I.6).
- ‘Moreover the figure at hand suffers on such occasion because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honoured in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire’ (Tess of the d’Urbervilles, ch.39).