"I see - I feel their trouble now: it is as if it were branded on my mind. - I have suffered and had no one to pity me - and now I have made others suffer."
— Eliot, George (1819-1880)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Edinburgh and London
Publisher
William Blackwood and Sons
Date
1860
Metaphor
"I see - I feel their trouble now: it is as if it were branded on my mind. - I have suffered and had no one to pity me - and now I have made others suffer."
Metaphor in Context
'O I can't do it' she said, in a voice almost of agony - 'Stephen - don't ask me - don't urge me. - I can't argue any longer - I don't know what is wise - but my heart will not let me do it. I see - I feel their trouble now: it is as if it were branded on my mind. - I have suffered and had no one to pity me - and now I have made others suffer. It would never leave me - it would embitter your love to me - I do care for Philip - in a different way - I remember all we said to each other - I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard - and I have forsaken him. And Lucy - she has been deceived - she who trusted me more than any one. I cannot marry you - I cannot take a good for myself that has been wrung out of their misery. - It is not the force that ought to rule us - this that we feel for each other - it would rend me away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me. I can't set out on a fresh life, and forget that - I must go back to it, and cling to it, - else I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beneath my feet.'
(p. 499)
Categories
Provenance
Reading A.S. Byatt's edition for Penguin Classics and searching at <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/mill/>
Citation
See The Mill on the Floss (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860). <Vol. I in Google Books><Vol. II><Vol. III>
Date of Entry
06/25/2007
