Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly...Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.

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About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was a 19th-century English novelist and poet. Thomas Hardy was 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, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Fear — Understanding and overcoming the anxieties that hold us back
  • Life — Reflections on the meaning, challenges, and beauty of life

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