Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OMwas an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 June 1840
distance hands suffering
...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.
passion hands fancy
She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.
heart hands perfect
The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.
approach approaches curve directly doubtful grave less line reach seemed straight till
Indeed, he seemed to approach the grave as a hyperbolic curve approaches a straight line -- less directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all.
care deserving english-novelist everybody honour nowadays people remain talent talented
Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
victim
Once victim, always victim -- that's the law!
snow spare till time waits
I need not go / Through sleet and snow / To where I know / She waits for me: / She will tarry there / Till I find it fair, / And have time to spare / From company.
love paths smile
Smile out; but still suffer: / The paths of love are rougher / Than thoroughfares of stones.
faith fire growing leaving march men night within
What of the faith and fire within us / Men who march away / Ere the barncocks say / Night is growing gray, / Leaving all that here can win us?
mind may tess-of-the-d-urbervilles
Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?
distance men
Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?
dreads elf final half lest maiden modest rise
There's not a modest maiden elf / But dreads the final Trumpet, / Lest half of her should rise herself, / And half some sturdy strumpet!
blinded thou
So zestfully canst thou sing? / And all this indignity, / With God's consent, on thee! / Blinded ere yet a-wing.
clear common remarkably seemed sky stars
The sky was clear -- remarkably clear -- and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.