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Mary Barton quotes
15 quotes from Mary Barton by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Source: Project Gutenberg e-text #2153 (public domain in the USA), the text this site’s reader shows. Each quote is copied exactly from that text and links to its passage in the reader; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against the reader’s text.
Besides, trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.
It was in itself a temptation, and to aid its efficacy came the natural sympathy for the aged parents mourning for their child, for the young man cut off in the flower of his days; and besides this, there is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.
People admire talent, and talk about their admiration. But they value common sense without talking about it, and often without knowing it.
But I'm clear about this, when God gives a blessing to be enjoyed, He gives it with a duty to be done; and the duty of the happy is to help the suffering to bear their woe.
— Spoken by a character · XXXVII. DETAILS CONNECTED WITH THE MURDER
A few moments may change our character for life, by giving a totally different direction to our aims and energies.
Jem replied with equal excitement--"And if you dare to injure her in the least, I will await you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge between us two."
"If she lives, she shall be my wedded wife. If she dies--mother, I can't speak of what I shall feel if she dies." His voice was choked in his throat.
— Spoken by a character · XXXIII. REQUIESCAT IN PACE
But he could not, you cannot, read the lot of those who daily pass you by in the street. How do you know the wild romances of their lives; the trials, the temptations they are even now enduring, resisting, sinking under?
The vices of the poor sometimes astound us here; but when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known, their virtues will astound us in far greater degree. Of this I am certain.
Our Lord Jesus was not above letting folk minister to Him, for He knew how happy it makes one to do aught for another. It's the happiest work on earth.
— Margaret · XXIII. THE SUB-POENA
There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds are acted blasphemy.
Writing was to him little more than an auxiliary to natural history; a way of ticketing specimens, not of expressing thoughts.
But though "silver and gold he had none," he gave heart-service and love works of far more value.
Still he loved on, and on, ever more fondly.
Remember, too, that though it may take much suffering to kill the able-bodied and effective members of society, it does not take much to reduce them to worn, listless, diseased creatures, who thenceforward crawl through life with moody hearts and pain-stricken bodies.