Has anyone studied Silas Marner? Or just know it really well?

[Wilbur]

Long shot, but I am hoping to find an uplifting quote, or passage from Silas Marner for a naming ceremony I am going to. Anyone got any ideas? Something about love, or family life, or simple pleasures? I read the book years ago when I did Mill on the Floss for A-level, but I don't have a copy and just wondered if anyone here was a George Eliot expert.

Why am I posting more than once?

Like I said 'stupid'!

Sorry. I really really didn't like Hester. DH tells me I lack empathy.

She was certainly stupid.

Califrau, I was going to post with that quote - love that bit in the book . Silas Marner is one of my favourite books, I also did it for O Level (whispers - in the 70's).

Oh, NKF - that is just perfect, how absolutely lovely, thank you, thank you! I think I will have to reread it now too. I didn't really enjoy studying The Mill on the Floss at the time, and got a rather jaded view of Eliot. Need to reassess, I think.

I do remember the mother dying in the snow though, and the baby in her arms not waking up til her hands relaxed after death. Even at 17 I thought that was sooo sad - I'm sure I would weep buckets now.

"Jaded view of Eliot"!!! What are our teachers up to?

She's wonderful. Middlemarch is perfect.

Oh Silas Marner is lovely - MOTF is tragic

I loved NKF's line, but if you need anything else, there is are some lines from Wordsworth that Eliot chose for the frontispiece

"A child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it and forward-looking thoughts."

If we're on to Wordsworth... what about 'the child is father to the man'? Gawd knows where it comes from....

Well, it was 1985, OrmIrian, and many of our teachers at our 6th form were on strike on and off throughout that year so we got a patchy English course and had to do a lot of wading through stuff on our own and I got a bit fed up. Not George Eliot's fault, obviously, she just bore the brunt of my teen "whatever" shrugs.

Love that Wordsworth quote, hurly - someone wrote it in one of ds1's baptism cards.

hope you've got the quote you need-
it's a lovely book, I think

I love Middlemarch, and MOTF, and Silas Marner. I was wondering if ds, 13, could handle Eliot yet, actually.

It's nice because it's what she thought Silas Marner was about really. I think I love the book because it is the most sun-filled and joyous of all her (wonderful) novels. Love the name Silas btw.