More quotes from George Eliot's
Felix Holt: The Radical (Felix himself speaking, of course)
"I have to determine for myself, and not for other men. I don't blame them, or think I am better than they; their circumstances are different. I would never choose to withdraw myself from the labour and common burthen of the world; but I do choose to withdraw myself from the push and scramble for money and position. Any man is at liberty to call me a fool, and say that mankind are benefited by the push and the scramble in the long-run. But I care for the people who live now and will not be living when the long-run comes. As it is, I prefer going shares with the unlucky."
and:
"I'm determined never to go about making my face simpering or solemn, and telling professional lies for profit; or to get tangled in affairs where I must wink at dishonesty and pocket the proceeds, and justify the knavery as part of a system I can't alter. If I once went into that sort of struggle for success, I should want to win -- I should defend the wrong that I had once identified myself with. I should become everything that I see beforehand to be detestable. I should do this, as men are doing it every day, for the ridiculously small prize -- perhaps for none at all -- perhaps for the sake of two parlours, a rank eligible for churchwardenship, a discontented wife and several unhopeful children."
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