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“‘Maggie!’ the soft voice said. ‘Lucy!’ answered a voice with a sharp ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round Maggie’s neck and leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow.” – George Eliot
“Oh, Maggie,” Lucy broke forth, “don’t you see? You have spent your days torn between the prison of self-denial and the dream of limitless freedom. The first has been thrust upon you by those who could understand nothing of what lies beyond their own narrow souls, though undoubtedly they believed themselves to be acting correctly in the face of real hardship; and the second has been only a fantasy, conjured up in response to the first. Neither one—oh, Maggie, neither one is real, can you not see that now? The first is a terrible waste, a fettering of all that is good and true within you; and the second is mere fancy. Even had you—even had you stayed with him,” and here Lucy’s voice faltered, her pale lashes fluttering with suppressed emotion, “the fullness of your feeling could not have lasted. You would have settled, Maggie; you would have been brought back down into the realm of—of housekeeping and gossip and babies to feed and—it would not have been the sublime existence you imagined. Your life would have narrowed once more.” Lucy’s eyes darted anxiously up to Maggie’s, then away again. “Forgive me for speaking so freely, cousin.”
Maggie surveyed with wonder Lucy’s pale, delicate face, flushed with some unprecedented emotion, and dawning awe broke over her, flooding the dark and tortured corners of her mind. She had always thought her cousin too innocent, too simple and sweet-natured, to perceive the inward struggles Maggie had always endured. But Maggie could not see that Lucy’s own suffering, these past weeks, had aged her the way years could not; that Lucy’s own world had been upended far more than by the removal of one suitor, surely to be replaced in time by another. Something had altered in Lucy, in her very core; and Lucy had determined she would have no suitors ever again.
“Oh, my dear Lucy,” Maggie said, voice trembling with affection. “You have seen more than I ever did.”
“And I see now that what you want, Maggie,” Lucy said earnestly, taking up Maggie’s brown hands in her white ones, “is simple happiness. No more sweeping drama; no more passions you feel you must suppress. Just long golden days of contentment, as you might have had as a child, were your companions less hard and narrow than they were: walking through the trees, along the river, clean bright days of happiness unfettered by duty or its opposite. And we might share them, Maggie, you and I might begin a new life together—if you will have me.”
“I am not made for such a life, Lucy,” Maggie said softly.
“Then we shall remake you,” Lucy replied simply. “You and I, Maggie, we shall fashion you anew.”