The superiority of puddings to speech

Jennie and I have a mutual appreciation of George Eliot (and Jennie is one of those lovely people I got to know a little better through the EQUIP book club, which is how I discovered this shared love). Here's why (snitched from Jennie's post here):

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism: but language is a stream that is is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a beery and bungling sort ...

From Chapter 10, Silas Marner by George Eliot.

(Note: People who visit this actual blog may have noticed that the other day I put up labels on the side. When I first started blogging there was no such thing as labels, then I didn't use them for a while, and then it was a tedious business to go back and add them. But by adding a few here and there I eventually finished it. It seems a bit pretentious really, as though here is a reference collection of something, but in this case you can find other quotes from George Eliot. Some of my labels are a bit random, not overly consistent and need refinining, and it would seem to defeat the purpose to actually have too many, but at least now each post has one or two and I can rework them later.)