Both Uses of
vortex
in
Middlemarch
- Even with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas under a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom.†
Chpt 1
- In this way, metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she needed.†
Chpt 1 *
Definition:
-
(vortex) the shape of something rotating rapidly -- such as a tornado
or: a powerful circular current of water (usually the result of conflicting tides)