alice’s Reviews > Tess of the D'Urbervilles > Status Update

The more I think about the plot of this book, the more absolutely insane it feels, wow

“Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved as over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there was the record of a pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its years, of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love.”

Of course
😢

"There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness, he was all that goodness could be-- knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know."

"She had stretched one arm so high above her coiled-up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her eyelids hung heavy over their pupils. The moment when a woman's soul is more incarnate than at any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation."

Hardy's diction is addictive