I spent a fairly brutal summer reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I didn’t take any notes while reading it, instead I found myself making highlights practically every other page. These are some of my favourites that I share without any context. Just a trousseau of gilded sentences that are, strangely, now mine. A great bladder for dried peas to rattle in!” said Mrs. Cadwallader. And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.