"after all in a quarter where she had not sought it"

"she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have these aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractions, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it."

George Eliot, Middlemarch I.i (Great books of the Western world, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990), vol. 46, p. 205), of Dorothea.

Eliot on "these later-born Theresas"

"That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago was certainly not the last of her kind.  Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur illmatched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion.  With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the willing soul. . . ."

George Eliot, Middlemarch, Prelude (Great books of the Western world, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990), vol. 46, p. 204), italics mine.

Soskice, looking back

"Looking back on it, I had very condescending attitudes towards religious believers.  I assumed that they were all people who needed some kind of emotional or social crutch and couldn't manage on their own—which is, of course, precisely true.  What changes when you become religious is that you realise you're one of those people. . . ."

Janet Martin Soskice, in an interview with Rupert Shortt.  God's advocates:  Christian thinkiers in conversation (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2005), 24-25.

". . . those continual prayers that are performed with the body, out of which prayer in the heart is born. . . ."

St. Isaac the Syrian, "Concerning aspects of the way of stillness," =chap. 1 of the long-lost Second Part of the Writings, trans. Sebastian Brock. Sebastian Brock, "St Isaac the Syrian: two unpublished texts," Sobornost 19, no. 1 (1997): 16 (7-32).  Context:  "an easy rule that is useful for someone who is weak":  "because the feeble body grows weary of standing continually on its feet in order to fulfil the customary acts of worship, and for this reason is often hindered from those continual prayers that are performed with the body, out of which prayer is born, you should fall down many times on your face at your seat—just as is described by your hands—and spend a while in supplication, in such a way that converse with scripture may be intermingled with prayer.  Then, the light which you will receive from these two quarters will be raised up, to your soul's enjoyment.  As a result prayer will give you delight because of reading, and you will again be illumined in reading by means of the keys of prayer."

Just guarding the walls for the sake of Christ

". . . one of the Fathers bids that, as a result of just being seated unoccupied in one's cell, sitting there without any work and just guarding the walls for the sake of the name of Christ, one should have great hope. . . ."

     St. Isaac the Syrian, "Concerning aspects of the way of stillness," =chap. 1 of the long-lost Second Part of the Writings, trans. Sebastian Brock. Sebastian Brock, "St Isaac the Syrian: two unpublished texts," Sobornost 19, no. 1 (1997): 19 (7-32).  "Abba Sarmata in Budge, The Book of Paradise, i. 593 (no.9)", according to Brock.

so that they might be aware of him

"he it is who, while dwelling in his own being when there was none to urge him—in that nothing existed—of his own accord and in his grace was pleased to will that the worlds should come into being so that they might be aware of him, and he effected the creation in his grace, even holding us human beings—who are dust from the earth, a mute nature—worthy, for by means of his creative craftsmanship he raised us up to the state of rationality, so that we might stand and speak in his presence in prayer. . . ."

     St. Isaac the Syrian, "Concerning aspects of the way of stillness," =chap. 1 of the long-lost Second Part of the Writings, trans. Sebastian Brock.  Sebastian Brock, "St Isaac the Syrian:  two unpublished texts," Sobornost 19, no. 1 (1997):  27 (7-32).

Joyce on the final form of the text

—But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began impatiently.

Art thou there, truepenny?

—Interesting only to the parish clerk.  I mean, we have the plays.  I mean when we read the poetry of King Lear what is it to us how the poet lived?  As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de l'Isle has said.  Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet's drinking, the poet's debts.  We have King Lear:  and it is immortal.

James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 9 (Ulysses:  the corrected text, ed. Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior (New York, NY:  Random House, 1986), 155, ll. 181-188).