"The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my feet - what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home-scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows - such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep bladed grass today, might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years, which still live in us and transform our perception into love."

George Eliot, 'The Mill on the Floss'



If I'm sitting here in the staff room typing out an excerpt from 'The Mill on the Floss' for tomorrow's English class with tears streaming down my cheeks, does that make me, er, a bit strange? (yes, I think it does).
But I think it's worthy testimony to the incredible power of the book - that seven years after I first cracked it open, all it takes for the memory of the emotional intensity and transcendent beauty of the book to completely overwhelm me is, er, about three minutes (and two pages). It's a wonder Mr. Purvis didn't constantly break down when he was teaching us the book back in J1, cos, you know, I would.