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?
stars sound tess
Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess?
pieces tess-of-the-d-urbervilles pity
O, you have torn my life all to pieces... made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!
tess-of-the-d-urbervilles tricks novel
Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…
eye littles tess-of-the-d-urbervilles
My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.
simplicity bless tess
Bless thy simplicity, Tess
strength strong-women tess-of-the-d-urbervilles
A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
tess-of-the-d-urbervilles lays
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
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.
buds drew forth invisible jets lifted opened rays sap stretched sucked sunrise
Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.
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!
business gain ghastly laws nature perceive preacher science universe
Well: what we gain by science is, after all, sadness, as the Preacher saith. The more we know of the laws and nature of the Universe the more ghastly a business we perceive it all to be - and the non-necessity of it.
broad desires eyes hearts known open people red souls
If all hearts were open and all desires known -- as they would be if people showed their souls -- how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!
family flesh time trace trait
I am the family face; / Flesh perishes, I live on, / Projecting trait and trace / Through time to times anon, / And leaping from place to place / Over oblivion.