Eliot, George (1819-1880)

The Mill on the Floss

Edinburgh and London

William Blackwood and Sons

1860

"Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love came from Stephen frorn time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half automatically: otherwise, they spoke no word; for what could words have been, but an inlet to thought?"

They glided rapidly along, to Stephen's rowing, helped by the backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses - on between the silent, sunny fields and pastures which seemed filled with a natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The breath of the young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of the oars, the fragmentary song of a passing bird heard now and then as if it were only the overflowing of brim-full gladness, the sweet solitude of a twofold consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave untiring gaze which need not be averted - what else could there be in their minds for the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love came from Stephen frorn time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half automatically: otherwise, they spoke no word; for what could words have been, but an inlet to thought? and thought did not belong to that enchanted haze in which they were enveloped - it belonged to the past and the future that lay outside the haze. Maggie was only dimly conscious of the banks, as they passed them, and dwelt with no recognition on the villages: she knew there were several to be passed before they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and left the boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of absence, that she was likely enough to let her way-marks pass unnoticed. (p. 484)

Uncategorized::Inlet

Reading A.S. Byatt's edition for Penguin Classics and searching at <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/mill/>

See The Mill on the Floss (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860). <Vol. I in Google Books><Vol. II><Vol. III>

06/25/2007