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  ...maternal delight.
"Forgive me, if I speak hastily," he said, with diffident gravity. "Why have you resolved now on disclosing to me what you took care to have me brought up in ignorance of? Why--since you seem angry that I should be glad?"
"Oh--the reasons of our actions!" said the Princess, with a ring of something like sarcastic scorn. "When you are as old as I am, it will not seem so simple a question--'Why did you do this?' People talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster, but I have not felt exactly what other women feel--or say they feel, for fear of being thought unlike others. When you reproach me in your heart for sending you away from me, you mean that I ought to say I felt about you as other women say they feel about their children. I did _not_ feel that. I was glad to be freed from you. But I did well for you, and I gave you your father's fortune. Do I seem now to be revoking everything?--Well, there are reasons. I feel many...   Eliot, George

Excerpt from Daniel Deronda · This quote is filed under Motives · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation · Tell us if you know any facts or errors in this quote · Make a shirt with this quote on our USA or UK shop · Help your friends discover QB

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