May 3

“She was intolerant of those who find life dull, as well as of those who find their fellow-creatures unattractive, and both for the same reason, holding that such indifference was due to the lack of vital energy and generosity in the complainer, since the same world held interests enough for those who have enough impulses and affections of their own to entangle themselves in its affairs. . . . She thought that there was much needed doing in the world, and criticism of our neighbours, and of the natural order might wait, at all events, till critic’s own character and conduct were free from blame. . . . It was unhelpful criticism that stirred her anger. . . . She felt so strongly that there was a worse and a better, almost at every turn in every life; and this being so, since it was in the power of human beings again and again to help each other to prefer and reach the better; the continuous passive dwelling upon all the possibilities of evil, whether in resentment or in despair, assumed in her eyes the shape of a folly closely verging on crime. . . . Surely the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him, which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstances and opinion.”

From a Review on George Eliot