Best of Elizabeth Gaskell's "North and South"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Painting above: The Artist in her room in Paris by Gwen John

And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the autumn breeze.

p.50-51

She [Dixon] remained with her [Mrs. Hale], and was devoted to her interests; always considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale.

p.52

She knew that his very reserve had originated in a tenderness for her, which might be cowardly, but not unfeeling.

p.80

And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable - small, keen bright little spots of positive enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows.

p.148

'Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used- not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.'

p.154

Wherever she looked there was evidence of care and labour, but not care and labour to procure ease, to help on the habits of tranquil home employment; solely to ornament, and then to preserve ornament from dirt or destruction.

p.158

They were talking of what all the world might hear; but it is a common effect of such a room as this to make people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes.

p.158-159

She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be.

p.217

He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.

p.221

'Why, mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life. I don't believe you know what a knobstick is.'

'Not I, child. I only know that it has a very vulgar sound; and I don't want to hear you using it.'

p.302

When she awoke a new idea flashed upon her with all the brightness of the morning.

p.355

'Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously - the pharisee ostentatiously- the simple-hearted humbly - the poor idiot blindly, as a sparrow falls to the ground; but the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion - given an equally good digestion. There's theory for you!'

p.446

It's only this very morning I plunged some fresh-gathered roses head downward in the water-jug, for, thought I, perhaps some one will be coming, and there's nothing so sweet as spring-water scented by a musk rose or two.

p.473-474

There was change everywhere; slight, yet pervading all. Households were changed by absence, or death, or marriage, or the natural mutations brought by days and months and years, which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth, and hence through manhood to age, whence we drop like fruit, fully ripe, into the quiet mother earth.

p.481

As sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, overpowered Margaret. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it.

p.488

I am so tired - so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually. I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony. If I were Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become a nun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for the love for my species could never fill my heart to the utter exclusion of love for individuals. Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not; I cannot decide tonight.

p.488

She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.

p.530