“But under this torpor there was a fierce battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her life if struggle had never known or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with hideous, overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy–why should not Philip suffer? She had had to suffer through many years of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And when something like that fullness of existence–love, wealth, ease, refinement, all that her nature craved–was brought within her reach, why was she to forego it, that another might have it–another, who perhaps needed it less? But amidst all this passionate tumult there were the old voices making themselves heard with rising power, till, from time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. Was that existence which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? Where, then, would be all the memories of early striving–all the deep pity for another’s pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of affection and hardship–all the divine presentiment of something higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of life?”
From George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss
Leave a Reply