The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: of himself, his faculties were as strong as ever.
Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a satisfied gaze as she
spread the clean cloth, and set on it the potato-pie, warmed up
slowly in a safe Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot over a
slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for an oven. For Silas
would not consent to have a grate and oven added to his
conveniences: he loved the old brick hearth as he had loved his
brown pot--and was it not there when he had found Eppie? The gods
of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant
of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots.
Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, soon laying down his
 Silas Marner |