The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hairs-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind--or rather that cold accretion called he world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units. --Thomas Hardy, Tess of the dUrbervilles
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 05:20:36 +0000