Suffering Quotes - The Portrait of a Lady | The Portrait of a Lady -Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

She had had the best of everything, and in a world in which the circumstances of so many people made them unenviable it was an advantage never to have known anything particularly unpleasant. It appeared to Isabel that the unpleasant had been even too absent from her knowledge, for she had gathered from her acquaintance with literature that it was often a source of interest and even of instruction. Her father had kept it away from her – her handsome, much-loved father, who always had such an aversion to it. (4.5)

Isabel’s dashing, ne’er-do-well father only wanted to protect his little girls from the world – and, as a result, Isabel feels as though she hasn’t really seen life at all.

As he said to himself, there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the field of valour. At present, however, the fragrance of forbidden fruit seemed occasionally to float past him and remind him that the finest of pleasures is the rush of action. Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation – a meagre entertainment for a young man who felt that he might have been an excellent linguist. (5.4)

Part of Ralph’s suffering is the sad fact that he can’t really take part in life – although he suspects that he would love it if he could.

Ralph shook his head sadly. "I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago," said Ralph.

"I told you just now I'm very fond of knowledge," Isabel answered.

"Yes, of happy knowledge – of pleasant knowledge. But you haven't suffered, and you're not made to suffer. I hope you'll never see the ghost!"

She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous – indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what she would say. "I'm not afraid, you know," she said: which seemed quite presumptuous enough.

"You're not afraid of suffering?"

"Yes, I'm afraid of suffering. But I'm not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily," she added.

"I don't believe you do," said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets.

"I don't think that's a fault," she answered. "It's not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that." (5.18-19)

Isabel feels somewhat uneasy about suffering; she has not suffered yet, and the part of her that wants to experience everything doesn’t back away from it. However, she also doesn’t think that suffering is necessarily fundamental to life.

"It’s a merit to be strong."

"Only, if you don't suffer they call you hard," Isabel remarked.

They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the staircase. Here Ralph presented his companion with her bedroom candle, which he had taken from a niche. "Never mind what they call you. When you do suffer they call you an idiot. The great point's to be as happy as possible." (5.20)

Isabel seems to be speaking from experience here – after all, her father just died (perhaps she didn’t outwardly suffer enough and was called hard herself?). Ralph attempts to comfort her by speaking a basic human truth – sometimes you just can’t win.

Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: "I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible--letting you know it without making you miserable."

"There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose." (12.17)

To Lord Warburton, the worst kind of suffering is that of a life with no purpose – and, right now, he sees his sole purpose as marrying Isabel.

The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You're not enough in contact with reality--with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You're too fastidious; you've too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be interested in keeping them up. (20.19)

Henrietta advises Isabel to embrace harsh reality, instead of living in the artificial, imaginary world of the wealthy.

Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure. She flattered herself that she had kept her failing faith to herself, however, – that no one suspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she thought he enjoyed it. It had come gradually – it was not till the first year of their life together, so admirably intimate at first, had closed that she had taken the alarm. Then the shadows had begun to gather; it was as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights out one by one. The dusk at first was vague and thin and she could still see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and again it had occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospect that were impenetrably black. (42.2)

Isabel’s miserable marriage puts her into a horribly active stage of suffering, and, instead of blocking it out, she feels it at every moment. It occurs to her that Osmond intentionally brought this spiritual darkness upon her.

After he had left her she went, the first thing, and lifted from the mantel-shelf the attenuated coffee-cup in which he had mentioned the existence of a crack; but she looked at it rather abstractedly. "Have I been so vile all for nothing?" she vaguely wailed. (49.26)

Madame Merle’s weakness – the hairline crack in her hard exterior – is finally revealed. We learn that she does indeed suffer greatly, and that she knows the extent of her wrongdoing.

"Ah, I must see Ralph!" Isabel wailed; not in resentment, not in the quick passion her companion had looked for; but in a tone of far-reaching, infinite sadness. (51.38)

The horror of Countess Gemini’s revelation hits Isabel with an unpredictable, new kind of sadness. Her suffering now seems infinite and hopeless.

Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance. "you’re very unhappy, I know. But I’m more so."

"Yes, I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again."

Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she quietly remarked while Isabel passed out. (52.33-34)

Isabel and Madame Merle acknowledge their mutual suffering – the only thing they have in common any more. Madame Merle admits that she has wronged Isabel, and, in penance, declares her self-imposed exile to America.

"Here on my knees, with you dying in my arms, I'm happier than I have been for a long time. And I want you to be happy – not to think of anything sad; only to feel that I'm near you and I love you. Why should there be pain? In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That's not the deepest thing; there's something deeper." (54.17)

Close to Ralph’s death, Isabel tries to remind him that there is something greater than suffering – love.