All the while they were converging, under an irresistible law, as surely as two streams in one vale.
An Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit.
Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.
His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of coyness.
Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted fellow; he had good strength to work at times; but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement; and, having been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-labourer, he was not particularly persistent when they did so coincide.
We are acting by the letter; and ’the letter killeth.
Your worldly failure, if you have failed, is to your credit rather than to your blame. Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.
Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants.
Cry about one thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.
And intellect at Christminster is new wine in old bottles.
What I am in worldly estate, she is. What I become, she must become. What I cannot be, she cannot be. And shall I ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider her? God forbid such a crime!
Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything to dislike.
It was unexpected youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight.
He knew he should go to see her again, according to her invitation. Those earnest men he read of, the saints, whom Sue, with gentle irreverence, called his demi-gods, would have shunned such encounters if they doubted their own strength. But he could not. He might fast and pray during the whole interval, but the human was more powerful in him than the Divine.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing.
Mrs. d’Urberville was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond.
I object to that conversation!” interposed the old woman. “I was not capable enough to hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearing is not evidence.
No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be broke by your acting stupidly.
A man who has spent his primal strength in journeying in one direction has not much spirit left for reversing his course.
Why – what the name – began her father. I thought you went out to get the parsley!