3 quotations linked to Aurora Leigh by or associated with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Work, artistic vocation, bereavement, self-development, nature, spiritual perception, social criticism and a narrator rebuilding purpose after loss.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“For uses, therefore, I must count worth while.”
After describing a slow return from profound loss, Aurora reconnects being alive with possible uses and reasons to continue engaging with the world.
Source note: Aurora Leigh, Book I; Project Gutenberg #56621. The line occurs after the narrator recounts bereavement and a gradual return to ordinary life; it is literary narration, not clinical advice.
“Get work, get work; Be sure ’tis better than what you work to get.”
The verse novel distinguishes the formative value of doing worthwhile work from the external reward a person hopes the work will produce.
Source note: Aurora Leigh, Book III; Project Gutenberg #56621. This is dialogue and argument within a verse novel, not a universal rule that work should override health, rest or other obligations.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God.”
The famous image makes ordinary nature spiritually charged for the attentive observer, contrasting reverent perception with casually overlooking what is present.
Source note: Aurora Leigh, Book VII; Project Gutenberg #56621. The line is explicitly theistic poetic language and is not presented as a scientific claim about nature.