Middlemarch Quote

I just wanted to share a quote with all of you that I haven't been able to get enough of. It's from the book Middlemarch by George Eliot (BTW Eliot was actually a woman who published under this pseudonym). I haven't read the book, but I watched my BBC movie of it and loved it so much that I can't wait to read it. At its heart, it's the story of a woman who has great plans to do something grand with her life. In the world's view she fails, but in another sense she is as successful as any of us could ever dream to be. I heard this quote at the end of the movie and immediately rushed to the internet to copy the exact wording. It's scribbled on a piece of white computer paper and has been laying at various spots in my house, where I find myself picking it up over and over throughout the day to reflect on its beautiful meaning. At first, I thought it expressed the ideal of what any stay-at-home mom was striving to accomplish. However, now I see that it could really express the goal just about of anyone's life... So, without further ado, I'll just let you read it for yourself.

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

--George Eliot, Middlemarch