Daniel Deronda by George Eliot — Read

My spirit is too weak; mortality / Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, / And each imagined pinnacle and steep / Of godlike hardship tells me I must die / Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. / Keats

After a few minutes the unwonted stillness had penetrated Mordecai's consciousness, and he looked up at Deronda, not in the least with bewilderment and surprise, but with a gaze full of reposing satisfaction. Deronda rose and placed his chair nearer, where there could be no imagined need for raising the voice. Mordecai felt the action as a patient feels the gentleness that eases his pillow. He began to speak in a low tone, as if he were only thinking articulately, not trying to reach an audience.