How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Ah, there's no staying i' this country for us now," said Mr. Poyser, and the hard tears trickled slowly down his round cheeks. "We thought it 'ud be bad luck if the old squire gave us notice this Lady day, but I must gi' notice myself now, an' see if there can anybody be got to come an' take to the crops as I'n put i' the ground; for I wonna stay upo' that man's land a day longer nor I'm forced to't. An' me, as thought him such a good upright young man, as I should be glad when he come to be our landlord. I'll ne'er lift my hat to him again, nor sit i' the same church wi' him... a man as has brought shame on respectable folks... an' pretended to be such a friend t' everybody.... Poor Adam there... a fine friend he's been t' Adam, making speeches an' talking so fine, an' all the while poisoning the lad's life, as it's much if he can stay i' this country any more nor we can." (40.21)
The Poysers' entire domestic situation has gone from good to all-out awful. But behind this transformation of circumstances is a transformation of opinions. Arthur, once a source of pride, is now perceived as a destructive and deceptive young man. Oh how the mighty have fallen…
Quote #8
When the sad eyes met—when Hetty and Adam looked at each other—she felt the change in him too, and it seemed to strike her with fresh fear. It was the first time she had seen any being whose face seemed to reflect the change in herself: Adam was a new image of the dreadful past and the dreadful present. She trembled more as she looked at him.
"Speak to him, Hetty," Dinah said; "tell him what is in your heart." (46.40-41)
In this scene, Eliot presents Hetty and Adam as mirror images of suffering. Each has been changed by Hetty's crime. Each offers the other a new medium for comprehending what has happened. Just don't expect them to start singing "Stand by Me" or anything.
Quote #9
For Adam, though you see him quite master of himself, working hard and delighting in his work after his inborn inalienable nature, had not outlived his sorrow—had not felt it slip from him as a temporary burden, and leave him the same man again. Do any of us? God forbid. It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it—if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy—the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love. (50.27)
Adam cannot forget the pain of Hetty's crime, or the pain of losing her. Adam's outlook on life has been permanently changed, but he has not allowed his can-do spirit to be destroyed by his private sorrows. He's a textbook workaholic.