Becky

“Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Sister Monica Joan murmured, as though to herself, but loud enough to be heard by all, "How perfectly charming. Old enough to know it all, and young enough to blush. Perfectly charming.”
― Jennifer Worth, The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

“Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in awhile you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault.”
― Jennifer Worth, The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

“No prophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough to tell himself, that essentially this young wife of his was as deserving of the praise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by achievement but by tendency. Moreover, the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honoured, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles