“for her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web in every cranny of her heart.”
Source: Madame Bovary
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Gustave Flaubert 98
French writer (1821–1880) 1821–1880Related quotes
“Inside every widow there's a spider that weaves it's webs in the corners of her heart.”
"Voices Within the Ark", ibid.
First Week, Sixth Day. Compare: "Much like a subtle spider which doth sit In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide; If aught do touch the utmost thread of it, She feels it instantly on every side", John Davies, The Immortality of the Soul.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)
“The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.”
Dracula, speaking to Harker at his castle
Dracula (1931)
Mariage à la Mode, Act ii, scene 1.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Immortality of the Soul (c. 1594). Compare:
:"Our souls sit close and silently within / And their own webs from their own entrails spin; / And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such / That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch." John Dryden, Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1.;
:"The spider’s touch—how exquisitely fine!— / Feels at each thread, and lives along the line." Alexander Pope, Epistle i. line 217.
