Then she went towards him, and might have represented a heaven-sent angel coming with a promise that the short hours remaining should yet be filled with that faithful love which clings the closer to a comprehended grief. His glance in reply to hers was so chill that she felt her timidity increased; yet she turned and passed her hand through his arm.

Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm to cling with difficulty against his rigid arm. There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which this unresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word, but not too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness — calling their denial knowledge.

From “Middlemarch,” by George Eliot

Happy New Year! I have not written any post in the past few weeks. I have been busy preparing the launching of my new book, “Uprooted Agave.” It should be out soon. But you have over 200 literary snippets on my blog that you might look up anytime.  Today’s snippet focuses on the importance of little gestures in our lives: “These acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness.” Born in the early nineteenth century, this literary genius suffered the discrimination that women endured at that time.  Only their poetry was accepted by the exclusive clique of male authors. She used a male pen-name and became one of the greatest writers of all time.