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
mind may tess-of-the-d-urbervilles
Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?
exhibitions may painful
Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all exhibition of itself is painful.
often-is giving may
Some women's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's license to receive it.
death fear may
Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed. Teach me to die…
may example stories
I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.
people goes-on may
People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.
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?
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!