160. SILAS MARNER

George Eliot 1861

After Silas Marner is betrayed by a friend and later loses his fiance, he moves to Raveloe and leads the life of a lonely weaver, seemingly content to enjoy the gold he has accumulated from his craft. But when this treasure gets stolen from its hiding place by his hearth, and days later, he finds a golden-haired child in its place, his life begins to change. With the help of Dolly, a friendly neighbor, he raises the child as his own, while continuing to wonder about the identity of the child's parents and the person who stole his gold. Set in 19th century England, this is another classic that gives as a timeless story of the redemptive powers of love.

'In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses -- and even great ladies, clothes in silk and threadlace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak -- there might be seen, in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom on the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.'(opening lines)

'He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort.'(14)

'The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent.'(38)

'I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbors with our words is, that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe, but it was often of a beery and bungling sort, and took the shape least allied to the complimentary and hypocritical.'(77)

"Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy -- never think well of me, let what would happen -- would you never think that the present made amends for the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and gave up everything you didn't like?"(106)

'It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.'(108)

'He turned immediately towards the hearth where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty of beauty in the earth or sky -- before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.'(119)

'The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no one eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.'(120)

"Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest -- one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how or where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all -- the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n -- they do, that they do;..."(123)

'Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's hearth; so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides her delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common village maiden, but had a touch of refinement and fervour which came from no other teaching than that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling.'(145-146)

a Bantan Book Reissue, June 1992

183 pages

Book owned
Book quotes from the edition on the left (and not title post)

Book qualifies for: Victorian Reading Challenge

                                 100+ Reading Challenge