The Mill on the Floss

 The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

This is the story of a young girl whose family suffers a loss of fortune and status, and how that affects her relationships and options in life. 

The writing of course is wonderful; I haven't read anything of Eliot's that I haven't loved. For this one I had an audio version, and it was great, but hearing it does not compare to reading it. With experience I've learned that for me audio is a good option for some books but not for all. Great writing needs to be read slowly, savored to absorb every rich sentence, and given enough attention to recognize when I've come to a passage worthy of underlining so I can find it again later. For that I need a printed book.

These are a few of my favourite quotes from The Mill on the Floss:

“Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.”

“What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?” 

“No anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you.”

“There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows--in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain--in the time when day follows day in dull unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine--it is then that despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction.” 

Wonderful, wonderful writing; her books are a gift to the world. I love Eliot, and I loved The Mill on the Floss.