“Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace 'We must all die' transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness 'I must die--and soon,' then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first.”
More from George Eliot
“I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved.”
“I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant.”
“It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.”
“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”