The sense of an entailed disadvantage—the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centred, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.
ATTRIBUTION:
George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist, editor. Daniel Deronda, bk. 2, ch. 16 (1876).
