Elizabeth Gaskell Quotations

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!

Madam your wife and I didn't hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me.

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.

People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!

My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else. All night long we had only snatches of sleep, waking up perpetually to the sense of a great shock and grief. Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling.

I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

We were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.

It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young; afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." (Mr. Bell)

Bombazine would have shown a deeper sense of her loss.

A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself. 'I am glad.I may never see her again; but it is comfort-a relief-to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!' It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy.

Look back. Look back at me." Richard Armitage spoke this line in the movie North and South as he watched Miss Hale drive away in a carriage.

She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness.

...yet, even before he left the room, - and certainly, not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life.She crept away, and hid from his idea. But it was of no use

Mr. Thorton love Margaret! Why, Margraret would never think of him, I'm sure! Such a thing has never entered her head." "Entering her heart would do.

If you dare to injure her in the least, I will await you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge between us two.

I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!

She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening—the fall. He could almost have exclaimed—'There it goes, again!

One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.

He could not - say rather, he would not - deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. He had no end in this but the present gratification.

For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind - a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.

Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence - every step of which was rich, as each recurring moment that bore him away from her made him recal some fresh grace in her demeanour, or pleasant pungency in her character.

How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?

Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name. 'Margaret!' Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered-panted out the words: — 'Take care. — If you do not speak — I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.

He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence. 'Let me speak to her.' 'Oh, no! I owe it to her, - but what will she say?' 'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!" ' 'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"

God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character - his life.

Only you're right in saying she's too good an opinion of herself to think of you. The saucy jade! I should like to know where she'd find a better!

Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid.

She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd ha thought that face - as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of - could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sing.

But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest.

Oh yes!' and suddenly the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and, though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner.

She thought in would be awkward for both to be brought into conscious collision; and fancied that, from her being on a low seat at first, and now standing behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste. As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her!

Yet is was very difficult to seperate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.

Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words

It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.

Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!

Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.

Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.

He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire.

If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends

Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.

His laws once broken, His justice and the very nature of those laws bring the immutable retribution; but if we turn penitently to Him, He enables us to bear our punishment with a meek and docile heart, ‘for His mercy endureth forever.

Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occassion for sport- there is lace at stake!" (Ms. Pole)

But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and no truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words.

Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.

Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!' 'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.

Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam?

Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.

I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.

Don’t be afraid,” she said, coldly, “ as far as love may go she may be worthy of you. It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride. Don’t be afraid, John.

But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?

Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.

Every mile was redolent of associations, which she would not have missed for the world, but each of which made her cry upon 'the days that are no more' with ineffable longing.

The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.

Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversations of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathizer, did her good.

She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!

When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.

But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as thy have neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond.

Come! Poor little heart! Be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.

She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.

Oh dear! A drunken infidel weaver! said Mr. Hale to himself.

He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.

Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last.

We do not look for reason for logic in the passionate entreaties of those who are sick unto death; we are stung with the recollection of a thousand slighted opportunities of fulfilling the wishes of those who will soon pass away from among us: and do they ask us for the future happiness of our lives, we lay it at their feet, and will it away from us.

And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love. What did he mean? Had she not the power to daunt him? She would see. It was more daring than became a man to threaten her.

It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores, said Margaret.

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.

Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life....My precept is, do something, my sister, do good if you can; but at any rate, do something.

But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her Mother's mind. She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.

I wish I could love people as you do, Molly!' 'Don't you?' said the other, in surprise. 'No. A good number of people love me, I believe, or at least they think they do; but I never seem to care much for any one. I do believe I love you, little Molly, whom I have only known for ten days, better than any one.

Your husband this morning! Mine tonight! What do you take him for?' 'A man' smiled Cynthia. 'And therefore, if you won't let me call him changeable, I'll coin a word and call him consolable.

Similarity of opinion is not always—I think not often—needed for fullness and perfection of love.

I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.

I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you don't understand me.

I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.

But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong.

She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.

No one loves me, - no one cares for me, but you, mother.

Nothing like the act of eating for equalizing men. Dying is nothing to it.

One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.

I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine...

Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours' time. But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things.

Nay, nay!” said the Squire. “It’s not so easy to break one’s heart. Sometimes I’ve wished it were. But one has to go on living—‘all the appointed days,’ as is said in the Bible.

He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so hard to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself - was a great fellow, with not a grace or a refinement about him.

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.

. . . it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place.

I say Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offense. Madam your wife and I didn't hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me!

He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.

He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.

A great matter calls her son with terms like deal, and love.

He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.

Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.

Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.

Really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.

I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity.