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“Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest, a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience. But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. Those who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration of Gwendolen's, some education was being prepared for Deronda.” — George Eliot
Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest, a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience.
But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. Those who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration of Gwendolen's, some education was being prepared for Deronda.