Felix Holt, the Radical

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire So far, so near, in woe and weal; Oh, loved the most when most I feel There is a lower and a higher!

He left me when the down upon his lip Lay like the shadow of a hovering kiss. "Beautiful mother, do not grieve," he said; "I will be great, and build our fortunes high. And you...

Hardly any one in Treby who thought at all of Mr. Lyon and his daughter had not felt the same sort of wonder about Esther as Felix felt. She was not much liked by her father's c...

In the evening, when Mr. Lyon was expecting the knock at the door that would announce Felix Holt, he occupied his cushionless arm-chair in the sitting-room, and was skimming rap...

Truth is the precious harvest of the earth. But once, when harvest waved upon a land, The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar, Locusts, and all the swarming foul-born broods, Fas...

Why, there are maidens of heroic touch, And yet they seem like things of gossamer You'd pinch the life out of, as out of moths. Oh, it is not loud tones and mouthingness, 'Tis n...

His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder. His heart's his mouth; What his breast forges, that his to...

_N._ Not I--'tis he That, changing to my thought, has changed my mind. No man puts rotten apples in his pouch Because their upper side looked fair to him. Constancy in mistake i...

A jolly parson of the good old stock, By birth a gentleman, yet homely too, Suiting his phrase to Hodge and Margery Whom he once christened, and has married since, A little lax...

See now the virtue living in a word! Hobson will think of swearing it was noon When he saw Dobson at the May-day fair, To prove poor Dobson did not rob the mail. 'Tis neighborly...

The multiplication of uncomplimentary placards noticed by Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt was one of several signs that the days of nomination and election were approaching. The presenc...

Felix could not go home again immediately after quitting Esther. He got out of the town, skirted it a little while, looking across the December stillness of the fields, and then...

_Grayfox._ No, over brains: which disturbs the canvass. In a natural state of things the average price of a vote at Paddlebrook is nine-and-sixpence, throwing the fifty pound te...

Custom calls me to't; What custom wills, in all things should we do't. The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heaped For truth to over-p...

If Denner had had a suspicion that Esther's presence at Transome Court was not agreeable to her mistress, it was impossible to entertain such a suspicion with regard to the othe...

Yea, it becomes a man To cherish memory, where he had delight. For kindness is the natural birth of kindness. Whose soul records not the great debt of joy, Is stamped for ever a...

The story and the prospect revealed to Esther by the lawyer's letter, which she and her father studied together, had made an impression on her very different from what she had b...

I also could speak as ye do; if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.--_Book of Job._

Rufus Lyon was very happy on that mild November morning appointed for the great conference in the larger room at the Free School, between himself and the Reverend Theodore Sherl...

The market dinner at "the Marquis" was in high repute in Treby and its neighborhood. The frequenters of this three-and-sixpenny ordinary liked to allude to it, as men allude to...

This man's metallic; at a sudden blow His soul rings hard. I cannot lay my palm, Trembling with life, upon that jointed brass. I shudder at the cold unanswering touch; But if it...

The evening of the market-day had passed, and Felix had not looked in at Malthouse Yard to talk over the public events with Mr. Lyon. When Esther was dressing the next morning,...

The mind of a man is as a country which was once open to squatters, who have bred and multiplied and become masters of the land. But then happeneth a time when new and hungry co...

Meanwhile Felix Holt had been making his way back from Sproxton to Treby in some irritation and bitterness of spirit. For a little while he walked slowly along the direct road,...

One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house, although he could hear the voice of the minister preaching in the chapel. He stood with a book under his...

It is a good and soothfast saw; Half-roasted never will be raw; No dough is dried once more to meal, No crock new-shapen by the wheel; You can't turn curds to milk again, Nor No...

"In the copia of the factious language the word Tory was entertained, and being a vocal clever-sounding word, readily pronounced, it kept its hold, and took possession of the fo...

That day Esther dined with old Mr. Transome only. Harold sent word that he was engaged and had already dined, and Mrs. Transome that she was feeling ill. Esther was much disappo...

Mr. Lyon lived in a small house, not quite so good as the parish clerk's, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel Yard. The new prosperity of Dissent at Treby had led to an...

Mr. Jermyn's handsome house stood a little way out of the town, surrounded by garden and lawn and plantations of hopeful trees. As Christian approached it he was in a perfectly...

'Twas town, yet country too: you felt the warmth Of clustering houses in the wintry time: Supped with a friend, and went by lantern home. Yet from your chamber window you could...

Mr. Lyon was careful to look in at Felix as soon as possible after Christian's departure, to tell him that his trust was discharged. During the rest of the day he was somewhat r...

The more permanent effect of Esther's action in the trial was visible in a meeting which took place the next day in the principal room of the White Hart of Loamford. To the magi...

Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning: if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, b...

We may not make this world a paradise By walking it together with clasped hands And eyes that meeting feed a double strength. We must be only joined by pains divine, Of spirits...

When Jermyn entered the room, Harold, who was seated at his library table examining papers, with his back toward the light and his face toward the door, moved his head coldly. J...

When Philip Debarry had come home that morning and read the letters which had not been forwarded to him, he laughed so heartily at Mr. Lyon's that he congratulated himself on be...

He rates me as the merchant does the wares He will not purchase--"quality not high 'Twill lose its color opened to the sun, Has no aroma, and, in fine, is naught-- I barter not...

It was only in the time of summer fairs that the market-place had ever looked more animated than it did under that autumn midday sun. There were plenty of blue cockades and stre...

One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen, in the wicker-chair against the white table, between th...

No man believes that many-textured knowledge and skill--as a just idea of the solar system, or the power of painting flesh, or of reading written harmonies--can come late and of...

"Yes; I came to see you, to know if you had any wishes that I could further, since I have not had an opportunity of consulting you since he came home."

When Christian quitted the Free School with the discovery that the young lady whose appearance had first startled him with an indefinable impression in the market-place was the...

"Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed merriment which passes for humor with the vulgar. In their fun, they have much resemblance to a turkey-cock. It has a cruel be...

When Denner had gone up to her mistress's room to dress her for dinner, she had found her seated just as Harold had found her, only with eyelids drooping and trembling over slow...

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor...

Jermyn did not forget to pay his visit to the minister in Malthouse Yard that evening. The mingled irritation, dread and defiance which he was feeling toward Harold Transome in...

I'm sick at heart. The eye of day, The insistent summer noon, seems pitiless, Shining in all the barren crevices Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark, Where I may dream that...

The fields are hoary with December's frost, I too am hoary with the chills of age. But through the fields and through the untrodden woods Is rest and stillness--only in my heart...

The next morning, after much prayer for the needful strength and wisdom, Mr. Lyon came down stairs with the resolution that another day should not pass without the fulfillment o...

A little after five o'clock that day, Harold arrived at Transome Court. As he was winding along the broad road of the park, some parting gleams of the March sun pierced the tree...