Middlemarch

the feeling that her sister was too religious for family comfort.

all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter

Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women’s coiffure and the favorite love-stories in prose and verse.

the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

seen the chasm between himself and Dorothea

Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts,

“Thank you, uncle,” said Dorothea, in a clear unwavering tone.

in girls of sweet, ardent nature,

the reasons that might induce her to accept him were already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day the reasons had budded and bloomed.

shall not be urged to tell reasons she would rather be silent upon