WomenReading

Chapter XVI
“Lady Carbury assured him [ Roger ] that she was never dull when left alone with books” (129). #WomenReading #Dishonesty

Chapter XVII
“When alone, -- and she [ Marie Melmotte ] was much alone, -- she would build castles in the air, which were bright with art and love, rather than with gems and gold. The books she read, poor though they generally were, left something bright on her imagination. She fancied to herself brilliant conversations in which she bore a bright part, though in real life she had hitherto hardly talked to any one since she was a child” (145). #WomenReading

Chapter XVIII
“Though the writer had not dared to sign his name she knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury, -- the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon. Poor Ruby Ruggles ! Living down at Sheep’s Acre, on the Waveney, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world beyond her ken” (149). #Letters #Seduction #WomenReading

“But the Ruggles woman, -- especially the Ruggles young woman, -- is better educated, has higher aspirations and a brighter imagination, and is infinitely more cunning than the man. If she be good-looking and relieved from the presure of want, her thought soar into a world which is as unknown to her as heaven is to us, and in regard to which her longings are apt to be infinitely stronger than are ours for heaven. Her education has been much better than that of the man. She can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely spell words out on a paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper. But her ignorance as to the reality of things is much more gross than his. By such contact as he has with men in markets, in the streets of the towns he frequents, and even in the fields, he learns something unconsciously of the relative condition of his country-men, -- and, as to that which he does not learn, his imagination is obtuse. But the woman builds castles in the air, and wonders, and longs. To the young farmer the squire’s daughter is a superior being very much out of his way. To the farmer’s daughter the young squire is an Apollo, whome to look at is a pleasure, -- by whom to be looked at is a delight. The danger for the most part is soon over. The girl marries after her kind, and then husband and children put the matter at rest for ever” (150-151). #Literacy #WomenReading #Seduction “She [ Ruby ] felt that she could be content to sit there for ever and to listen to him. This was a realisation of those delights of life of which she had read in the thrice-thumbed old novels which she had gotten from the little circulating library in Bungay” (153). #Seduction #WomenReading

Chapter XIX
While Roger is talking to Father Barham: “Henrietta was also reading” (157). #WomenReading