Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South (1854)

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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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing — or not doing — better than anyone else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not.

Elizabeth Gaskell
There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of men, or the most powerful—I should equally rebel and resent his interference...

Elizabeth Gaskell
What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.

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

Elizabeth Gaskell
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

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

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

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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?

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.

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

Elizabeth Gaskell
I dare say there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.

Elizabeth Gaskell
If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in that afternoon. All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she — no! nor the whole world — should never hinder him from loving her.

Elizabeth Gaskell
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.

Elizabeth Gaskell
I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask him to bless thee.

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

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

Elizabeth Gaskell
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!

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

Elizabeth Gaskell
Mr Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything.

Elizabeth Gaskell