This morning I read Dorothea's description of what comforts her: "That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil -- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower." When Will tried to give it a name, she stopped him. Don't try and define it, it's my life, she said. What a beautiful book I'm reading.

I went into work and my supervisor sat me down to tell me that sometimes I was a "dark cloud over the department." It's so frustrating, the disconnect between how I feel about life when I'm reading and the life that I experience. I want to be more like the good people in Middlemarch, but I end up by being me, the worst parts of me pointed out today--impatient, snappish, and bossy where I have no authority to be so.

Although maybe I'm not terribly different from Dorothea. After all, this exchange between the Brooke sisters sounded quite a bit like the one I had at work:

"You mean that I am very impatient, Celia."

"Yes; when people don't do and say just what you like."

I'll try and be better.