![]() ![]() It begins with a rhetorical question: “Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand in hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors?” Modern-day readers, invited at the outset of what is a dauntingly long book to reflect upon their familiarity with the life of a 16th-century Spanish saint, might be forgiven for meekly responding, “Er, me?” The novel opens with a Prelude-not so much an introduction to the novel’s characters or context as an announcement of its themes. It would be hard, however, for even the most devoted aficionado of George Eliot to argue that the opening sentence of Middlemarch should be numbered among the greats in terms of memorability, effectiveness, or enticement. ![]() Brough the conjunction of irony and verity, each opening sentence aspires to universality and conveys to readers that they are in safe authorial hands. ![]() Consider Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” or Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” These are lines as memorable and as often-reached-for as a Shakespearean verse. Among the most enduring of 19th-century novels there are a handful with opening sentences that have achieved proverbial status. ![]()
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