Finished reading Middlemarch

George Eliot's Middlemarch is a lengthy read of significant depth. Dorothea is one of the most admirable characters I have yet to encounter in literature. The last section of the novel "Sunset and Sunrise" also happens to tie in thematically with some of my recent zen Buddhism readings in compelling parallel ways. The final paragraph leaves us with the sentiment below, which imbues even the most minuscule seeming life with a certain grandeur:

Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were

not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke

the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the

earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably

diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on

unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they

might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a

hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.