How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Ah, poor blind child!" Dinah went on, "think if it should happen to you as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity. She thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy 'em; she thought nothing about how she might get a clean heart and a right spirit—she only wanted to have better lace than other girls. And one day when she put her new cap on and looked in the glass, she saw a bleeding Face crowned with thorns. That face is looking at you now"—here Dinah pointed to a spot close in front of Bessy—"Ah, tear off those follies! Cast them away from you, as if they were stinging adders. They are stinging you—they are poisoning your soul—they are dragging you down into a dark bottomless pit, where you will sink for ever, and for ever, and for ever, further away from light and God."
Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before her, sobbing aloud. Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be "laid hold on" too, this impression on the rebellious Bess striking him as nothing less than a miracle, walked hastily away and began to work at his anvil by way of reassuring himself. "Folks mun ha' hoss-shoes, praichin' or no praichin': the divil canna lay hould o' me for that," he muttered to himself. (2.58-59)
Many of the people in Hayslope are set in their ways and unwilling to change their opinions. Bessy loves her trinkets; Chad is a creature of habit. Yawn. Only harsh impressions—or tough love—can spur otherwise contented characters like Bessy to transform.
Quote #2
The history of the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne. It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and resonant, the life at the Hall has changed its focus, and no longer radiates from the parlour, but from the kitchen and the farmyard. (6.5)
Much like the characters in Adam Bede, specific settings have well-defined histories and are susceptible to great transformations. The Hall Farm was once an aristocratic family seat; now it is a prospering farm. Would it be too much to say that the Hall Farm is almost a human being? Yes, it certainly would. Forget we said anything.
Quote #3
"There's nothing but what's bearable as long as a man can work," he said to himself; "the natur o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot." (11.3)
Early in the novel, Adam's view of life is founded on a principle of permanence. Change, for him, is only an appearance that overlays the deeper, unchanging nature of life. Think of it as a Hayslope version of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."