Submitted by VastBadger7995 t3_10oxv3r in books
Middlemarch by George Eliot.
The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly; you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a women’s glance.
- Chapter 15.
With the one in bold!- About Lydgate, if it helps. I kind of understand the non-highlighted text but if I try to understand the text in bold then probably I'll have a better understanding. Maybe.
whiteskwirl2 t1_j6hh7fh wrote
Passion wanes in a romance. You think your love is special but it's not. That passion is just a phase everyone goes through, we're just not aware of how commonplace it is. Over time that passion cools and your earlier self (the way it once was between the two lovers) is gone and now you're starting to get sick of each other.
That's how I read it anyway.