Felix Holt: The Radical

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer—committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

To the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

Esther always avoided asking questions of Lydley, who found an answer as she found a key, by pouring out a pocketful of miscellanies.

Mr. Johnson's character was not much more exceptional than his double chin.

Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments.

I have to determine for myself, and not for other men. I don’t blame them, or think I am better than they; their circumstances are different. I would never choose to withdraw myself from the labour and common burden of the world; but I do choose to withdraw myself from the push and the scramble for money and position. Any man is at liberty to call me a fool, and say that mankind are benefited by the push and the scramble in the long-run. But I care for the people who live now and will not be living when the long-run comes. As it is, I prefer going shares with the unlucky.

It was a constant source of irritation to him that the public men on his side were, on the whole, not conspicuously better than the public men on the other side.

Treby Manor, measured from the front saloon to the remotest shed, was as large as a moderate-sized village, and there were certainly more lights burning in it every evening, more wine, spirits, and ale drunk, more waste and more folly, than could be found in some large villages.

We see human heroism broken into units and say, this unit did little—might as well not have been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be cheaply parted with.

There is no private life which is not determined by a wider public life.

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

Yet there was a lightning that shot out of her now and then, which seemed the sign of a dangerous judgment; as if she inwardly saw something more admirable than Harold Transome. Now, to be perfectly charming, a woman should not see this.

Let every woocr make himself strongly expected; he may succeed by dint of being absent, but hardly in the first instance

Esther found it impossible to read in these days; her life was a book which she seemed herself to be constructing - trying to make character clear before her, and looking into the ways of destiny.

When she had been hardly a week in the house, he had made up his mind to marry her; and it had never entered into that mind that the decision did not rest entirely with his inclination.

A man with a definite will and an energetic personality acts as a sort of flag to draw and bind together the foolish units of a mob. It was on this sort of influence over men whose mental state was a mere medley of appetites and confused impressions, that Felix had dared to count.

I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven,' said Felix, 'and that is public opinion - the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful.

pleasure he always felt in being among people who did not know him, and doubtless took him to be something higher than he really was.

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid: wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest.

a cause which has to be proved by argument or testimony is not an object of passionate devotion to colliers: a visible cause of beer acts on them much more strongly.

The weak point to which Felix referred was his liability to be carried completely out of his own mastery by indignant anger.

Radical, or Root-and-branch man, as they said in the great times when Nonconformity was in its giant youth.

there was the sense, that if Felix Holt were to love her, her life would be exalted into something quite new - into a sort of difficult blessedness, such as one may imagine in beings who are conscious of painfully growing into the possession of higher powers.

I'll never marry, though I should have to live on raw turnips to subdue my flesh.

When a man sees his livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to have orders for the dose, and not curious inquiries.

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odours that lie on the track of truth The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is -

But you'll respect the constitution handed down, etc. - and you'll rally round the throne - and the king, God bless him, and the usual toasts, eh?' 'Of course, of course. I am a Radical only in rooting out abuses.

Consideration like an angel came And whipped the offending Adam out of her; Leaving her body as a paradise To envelop and contain celestial spirits. SHAKESPEARE: Henry V

The little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. WORDSWORTH: Tintern Abbey

The very truth hath a color from the disposition of the utterer.