Quotes From "Villette" By Unknown

The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality. Unknown

I do not think the sunny youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy - not as angels but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives are thus blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty wild and variable - breast adverse winds are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of God and I know that amidst His boundless works is somewhere stored the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its mercy. Unknown

Happiness is the cure–a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both. Unknown

~Do you like him much?~ I told you I like him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much? He is full of faults.~ Is he?~ All boys are.~ More than girls?~ Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anyboy perfect, and as to likes and diskiles, we should be friendly to all, and worship none. Unknown

I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. Unknown

...[M]y inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose. I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life. Unknown

I think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature, despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades – stood, shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of his promise: spoke thus – then towering, became a star, and vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense – a worse boon than despair. Unknown

For once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy: not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live Unknown

A strong, vague persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I could go forward– that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in time open– predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: “I lie in the shadow of St. Paul’s. . Unknown

Dr. John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck - a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. Unknown

The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and rather still wished it had held aloof. Unknown

Besides, I seemed to hold two lives–the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter. Unknown

Where the bodily presence is weak and the speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can achieve? Unknown

.. . if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart or head of no human being in this house could yield it .. . Unknown

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings. Unknown

I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman. Unknown

I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns. . Unknown

This little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once. Unknown

I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains. Unknown

But if I feel, may I never express?” “Never! ” declared Reason.I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination - her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. . Unknown

Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup. . Unknown

My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its chords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless! Unknown

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in mine. Unknown

Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present pleasure. Unknown

I knew I was catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Unknown

Unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me. Unknown

Our natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid, though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live content, as if the air about them did us good. Unknown

In catalepsy and a dead trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature. Unknown

The spring which moved my energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. Unknown

This pure little drop from a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart Unknown

Come, Paul! " she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried -"My heart will break! " What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me! " lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept." Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass, " said the calm Madame Beck.To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi! " in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving." Laissez-moi! " he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke." But this will never do, " said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman -"Sortez d'ici! "" I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him, " she threatened pertinaciously." Femme! " cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant! " He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt." What you do is wrong, " pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."" You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me, " said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste, " he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me! " This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death." It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he." It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur, " I said. Unknown

His veins were dark with a vivid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy. Unknown

Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror- glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple. On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me - my heart seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I despaired. . Unknown

There are certain natures of which the mutual influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say. For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation. Unknown

I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another degree: he is more my own. [. .. ] Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun returned, his light was night to some! Unknown

Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated." "Always preaching, " retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing." The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he turned a little aside, but was patient. Unknown

Graham’s thoughts of me were not entirely those of a frozen indifference, after all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the skylights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he proved to me that he kept one little closet, over the door of which was written ‘Lucy’s Room.’ I kept a place for him too – a place of which I never took the measure, either by rule or compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I carried it folded in the hollow of my hand – yet, released from that hold and constriction, I knew not but its innate capacity for expanse might have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host. . Unknown

Once I saw Graham - wholly unconscious of her proximity - push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or two. A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face, to which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot. Unknown

Amid the worry of a self- condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank you, Lucy, " in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear welcomed. Unknown

Do you like him much?' I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much: he is full of faults.' Is he?' All boys are. Unknown