Daniel Deronda

Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars...

DEAREST CHILD.—I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going to Baden. How could you be so thoughtle...

Pity that Offendene was not the home of Miss Harleth’s childhood, or endeared to her by family memories! A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native la...

“_Madelon._—Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un roman serait bientôt fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d’abord Cyrus épousait Mandane, et qu’Aronce de plain...

Gwendolen’s reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle’s expectations. From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Wanchester, where Mr. Quallon the banker kept a generous hou...

But Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions from the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger grounds than those of personal liking...

That lofty criticism had caused Gwendolen a new sort of pain. She would not have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not having had Miss Arrowpoint’s musica...

“_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by, _Willie_. Hey, ho, bonnilasse! _P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye, _W_. As clear as the crystal glasse. _P_. All as the sunny beam...

There was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy, unbroken till the next day, when it began...

I’ll tell thee, Berthold, what men’s hopes are like: A silly child that, quivering with joy, Would cast its little mimic fishing-line Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys In...

_1st Gent._ What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste Of marriageable men. This planet’s store In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals— All matter rendered to our plastic skill,...

Mr. Grandcourt’s wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen; but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger to come forward and she felt h...

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour.” —SHAKESPEAR...

Grandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a power of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was hardly a day on which by some arrangement...

I will not clothe myself in wreck—wear gems Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned; Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden...

Gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement of gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having brought from her late experience a vague i...

Men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so for every visible arc in the wanderer’s...

On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on the Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to England, with the understanding that hi...

Life is a various mother: now she dons Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells Gri...

“I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, ‘’Tis all barren’: and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.”—STER...

“It will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world, we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manif...

It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls dow...

We please our fancy with ideal webs Of innovation, but our life meanwhile Is in the loom, where busy passion plies The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds The accustomed pat...

Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the manner of prophecy, and is a title witho...

Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that there were only disagreeables before...

How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled, and have dwindled from motives into a vacilla...

He brings white asses laden with the freight Of Tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm, To bribe my will: I’ll bid them chase him forth, Nor let him breathe the taint of his surm...

While Grandcourt on his beautiful black Yarico, the groom behind him on Criterion, was taking the pleasant ride from Diplow to Offendene, Gwendolen was seated before the mirror...

“My dear, let me congratulate you on having created a strong attachment,” said the rector. “You look serious, and I don’t wonder at it: a life-long union is a solemn thing. But...

“Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow. As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps anywhere around the globe.” —WALT WHITMAN.

Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone, and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow darkness of its conical roof surmount...

On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs. Grandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low a slight frost crisped the leaves. The brid...

In all ages it hath been a favorite text that a potent love hath the nature of an isolated fatality, whereto the mind’s opinions and wonted resolves are altogether alien; as, fo...

“No man,” says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, “may turn the bones of his father and mother into spoons”—sure that his hearers felt the checks against that form of eco...

“Er ist geheissen Israel. Ihn hat verwandelt Hexenspruch in einen Hund. * * * * * Aber jeden Freitag Abend, In der Dämm’rungstunde, plötzlich Weicht der Zauber, und der Hund Wir...

Were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human history had been different, and one should look to see the contrivers of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of...

Meanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, who wished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we cannot tell a man his own secrets, the...

_Aspern._ Pardon, my lord—I speak for Sigismund. _Fronsberg._ For him? Oh, ay—for him I always hold A pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw Sooner or later on me. What his need...

There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound not _after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire into the νάρθηξ whereby it might be conveyed to mor...

“Vor den Wissenden sich stellen, Sicher ist’s in allen Fällen! Wenn du lange dich gequälet, Weiß er gleich, wo dir es fehlet. Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen; Denn er weiß, wo...

“Within the soul a faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal, that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brig...

Imagine the conflict in a mind like Deronda’s given not only to feel strongly but to question actively, on the evening after the interview with Mordecai. To a young man of much...

“Wenn es eine Stufenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die höchste Staffel erstiegen; wen die Dauer der Schmerzen und die Geduld, mit welcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so...

“My spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looki...

Fairy folk a-listening Hear the seed sprout in the spring. And for music to their dance Hear the hedgerows wake from trance, Sap that trembles into buds Sending little rhythmic...

Behold my lady’s carriage stop the way. With powdered lacquey and with charming bay; She sweeps the matting, treads the crimson stair. Her arduous function solely “to be there.”...

“If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, ‘Because it was he, because it was I.’ There i...

One might be tempted to envy Deronda providing new clothes for Mordecai, and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in imagining the effect of the fine gray flannel...

’Tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule of our own security, as is well hinted by Machiavelli concerning Cæsar Borgia, who, saith he, had thought...

could have framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving Lush behind her. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and not to give herself time to reflect...

Ever in his soul That larger justice which makes gratitude Triumphed above resentment. ’Tis the mark Of regal natures, with the wider life. And fuller capability of joy:— Not wi...

“If some mortal, born too soon, Were laid away in some great trance—the ages Coming and going all the while—till dawned His true time’s advent; and could then record The words t...

She held the spindle as she sat, Errina with the thick-coiled mat Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, Gazing with a sad surprise At surging visions of her destiny— To spin the...

“La même fermeté qui sert à résister à l’amour sert aussi à le rendre violent et durable; et les personnes faibles qui sont toujours agitées des passions n’en sont presque jamai...

Before Deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a day had passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she was not yet well enough to receive h...

“The unwilling brain Feigns often what it would not; and we trust Imagination with such phantasies As the tongue dares not fashion into words; Which have no words, their horror...

In two hours after his parting from her he knew that the Princess Halm-Eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his journey to Genoa was concerned, he might hi...

Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed, had been perfectly quiet, and had only...

Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life, And righteous or unrighteous, being done, Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself Be laid in darkness, and the universe Quiver...

Extension, we know, is a very imperfect measure of things; and the length of the sun’s journeying can no more tell us how life has advanced than the acreage of a field can tell...

Sir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr. Gascoigne had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take his departure until he had seen the baronet. The...

“But I shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it...

“Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, As birds within the green shade of the grove. Before the gentle heart, in Nature’s scheme, Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Lov...

Something which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of a threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which had lately come back, bringing abu...

“Moses, trotz seiner Befeindung der Kunst, dennoch selber ein großer Künstler war und den wahren Künstlergeist besaß. Nur war dieser Künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägypti...

It was not many days after her mother’s arrival that Gwendolen would consent to remain at Genoa. Her desire to get away from that gem of the sea, helped to rally her strength an...

Deronda did not obey Gwendolen’s new summons without some agitation. Not his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the danger that another’s heart might feel lar...

The father Lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by that possibility of staking something in play or betting which presented itself with the handling of any s...

It was an unpleasant surprise to Deronda when he returned from the Abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at Brompton. Mirah had felt it necessary to spe...

Deronda’s eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a stronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his assurance that Mirah needed relief from jealousy. He went on his...

“The human nature unto which I felt That I belonged, and reverenced with love, Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit Diffused through time and space, with aid derived Of evi...

In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the see...