Thomas Hardy

“ Arabella Cartlett and her weeds stood among them. She had a clear, powerful voice, which could be distinctly heard with the rest, rising and falling to the tune, her inflated bosom being also seen doing likewise.
It was two hours later on the same day that Anny and Mrs. Cartlett, having had tea at the Temperance Hotel, started on their return journey across the high and open country which stretches between Kennetbridge and Alfredston. Arabella was in a thoughtful mood; but her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Anny at first surmised. ”

“ If you on'y knew what I do dream sometimes o' nights quite against my wishes, you'd say I had my struggles!" (Anny, too, had grown rather serious of late, her lover having jilted her.)
"What shall I do about it?" urged Arabella morbidly.
"You could take a lock of your late-lost husband's hair, and have it made into a mourning brooch, and look at it every hour of the day."
"I haven't a morsel!—and if I had 'twould be no good... After all that's said about the comforts of this religion, I wish I had Jude back again!"
"You must fight valiant against the feeling, since he's another's. ”

“ In the meantime Sue, though remarkably successful in her cake-selling experiment at Kennetbridge fair, had lost the temporary brightness which had begun to sit upon her sadness on account of that success. When all her "Christminster" cakes had been disposed of she took upon her arm the empty basket, and the cloth which had covered the standing she had hired, and giving the other things to the boy left the street with him. They followed a lane to a distance of half a mile, till they met an old woman carrying a child in short clothes, and leading a toddler in the other hand. ”

“ "Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would!" ”

“ A contented mind is a continual feast. She has done no better."
"She is not doing well, you mean?"
"I met her by accident at Kennetbridge this very day, and she is anything but thriving. Her husband is ill, and she anxious. ”

“ Call yourself a schoolmaster! I used to think o't when they read it in church, and I was carrying on a bit. 'Then shall the man be guiltless; but the woman shall bear her iniquity.' Damn rough on us women ”

“ I should have kept her chained on—her spirit for kicking would have been broke soon enough! There's nothing like bondage and a stone-deaf taskmaster for taming us women. Besides, you've got the laws on your side. ”