He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind--a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre. Elizabeth Gaskell
About This Quote

J.K. Rowling said: "He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind--a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed."

Source: North And South

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More Quotes By Elizabeth Gaskell
  1. One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to beloved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannotcleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have neverloved any woman before: my life has...
  2. I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.
  3. Take care. If you do not speak — I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way. Send me away at once, if I must go; — Margaret! —
  4. Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.
  5. I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.
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