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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: his surprise that though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl
he had not won delight,--which he had also regarded as an object
to be found by search. It is true that he knew all the classical
passages implying the contrary; but knowing classical passages,
we find, is a mode of motion, which explains why they leave
so little extra force for their personal application.
Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood
had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that
large drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we
all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors,
and act fatally on the strength of them. And now he was in danger
Middlemarch |
