How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"I wish I could go with you and take care of you, Hetty," he said, the next morning, leaning in at the coach door; "but you won't stay much beyond a week—the time 'ull seem long."
He was looking at her fondly, and his strong hand held hers in its grasp. Hetty felt a sense of protection in his presence—she was used to it now: if she could have had the past undone and known no other love than her quiet liking for Adam! The tears rose as she gave him the last look.
"God bless her for loving me," said Adam, as he went on his way to work again, with Gyp at his heels. (35.13-15)
Hetty's grandiose visions of Arthur and his "love" have been replaced by a "quiet liking" for Adam. She's done sowing her wild oats. This seems like a more mature form of affection, but the transgressive, doomed Hetty will never have a chance to see it to fruition.
Quote #8
That is a simple scene, reader. But it is almost certain that you, too, have been in love—perhaps, even, more than once, though you may not choose to say so to all your feminine friends. If so, you will no more think the slight words, the timid looks, the tremulous touches, by which two human souls approach each other gradually, like two little quivering rain-streams, before they mingle into one—you will no more think these things trivial than you will think the first-detected signs of coming spring trivial, though they be but a faint indescribable something in the air and in the song of the birds, and the tiniest perceptible budding on the hedge-row branches. Those slight words and looks and touches are part of the soul's language; and the finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as "light," "sound," "stars," "music"—words really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves, any more than "chips" or "sawdust." It is only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great and beautiful. (50.47)
Love is "unspeakably great and beautiful," but it is not impossible to explain or comprehend. Thank heavens, because how else could we explain Valentine's Day? Small moments of affection can provide access to the sublime power of love. Now there's a sentiment that belongs on a card!
Quote #9
Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."
And they kissed each other with a deep joy.
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting? (54.18-21)
Genuine love does not blind Eliot's characters, or her narrator, to the realities of labor and death. Rather, love provides Adam and Dinah with the desire and the strength to face the eventualities of life together. Aw, shucks.