Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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âThat is the bitterest of allâ âto wear the yoke of our own wrongdoing. But if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or lifelong incurable disease?â âand made the unalterable wrong a reason for more effort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil? One who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by that consciousness into a higher course than is common. There are many examples. Feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make us long to save other lives from being spoiled.â
âBut you have not wronged anyone, or spoiled their lives,â said Gwendolen, hastily. âIt is only others who have wronged you.â
Deronda colored slightly, but said immediatelyâ ââI suppose our keen feeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others, if, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others go through the same sharp experience. That is a sort of remorse before commission. Canât you understand that?â
âI think I doâ ânow,â said Gwendolen. âBut you were rightâ âI am selfish. I have never thought much of anyoneâs feelings, except my motherâs. I have not been fond of people. But what can I do?â she went on, more quickly. âI must get up in the morning and do what everyone else does. It is all like a dance set beforehand. I seem to see all that can beâ âand I am tired and sick of it. And the world is all confusion to meââ âshe made a gesture of disgust. âYou say I am ignorant. But what is the good of trying to know more, unless life were worth more?â
âThis good,â said Deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity, which he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; âlife would be worth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in the world beyond the small drama of personal desires. It is the curse of your lifeâ âforgive meâ âof so many lives, that all passion is spent in that narrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger home for it. Is there any single occupation of mind that you care about with passionate delight or even independent interest?â
Deronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an electric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently,
âI take what you said of music for a small exampleâ âit answers for all larger thingsâ âyou will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy in it. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in it for souls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus for our attention and awe, I donât see how four would have it. We should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own inanityâ âwhich is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The refuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the religious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our own appetites and vanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by an elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our wisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are clad with knowledge.â
The half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Derondaâs voice came, as often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather than from severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial effect on her than any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent rebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is comparative activity. For the moment she felt like a shaken childâ âshaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly,
âI will try. I will think.â
They both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had arrested themâ âfor Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure which is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering around usâ âtill Gwendolen began again,
âYou said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly anyâ ânone about me. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible. Things have changed to me soâ âin such a short time. What I used not to like I long for now. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things now they are gone.â Her lip trembled.
âTake the present suffering as a painful letting in of light,â said Deronda, more gently. âYou are conscious of more beyond the round of your own inclinationsâ âyou know more of the way in which your life presses on others, and their life on yours. I donât think you could have escaped the painful process in some form or other.â
âBut it is a very cruel form,â said Gwendolen, beating her foot on the ground with returning agitation. âI am frightened at everything. I am frightened at myself. When my blood is fired I can do daring thingsâ âtake any leap; but that makes me frightened at myself.â She was looking at nothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the window, away from Deronda, who, with quick comprehension said,
âTurn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may do a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always in a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our memories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our tastes. Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately present to you. Try to take hold of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision.â Deronda uttered each sentence more urgently; he felt as if he were seizing
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