'Oh, it is hard!' said Dorothea. 'I understand the difficulty there is in your vindicating yourself. And that all this should have come to you who had meant to lead a higher life than the common, and to find out better ways — I cannot bear to rest in this as unchangeable. I know you meant that. I remember what you said to me when you first spoke to me about the Hospital. There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that — to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail.'
'Yes,' said Lydgate, feeling that here he had found room for the full meaning of his grief. 'I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.'
From Chapter 76 of George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-1872). (See also RememberMe, ^zhurnal entry of 21 May 1999, and My Religion.)
Friday, November 17, 2000 at 18:45:11 (EST) = 2000-11-17
(correlates: EsseQuamVideri, My Religion, OnIncomparables, ...)