Thomas Hardy

“ People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly meets a man who has ill-used another woman."
"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came back--because--because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!"
"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently. "You need not fear. I am the only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that you hated living here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you." ”

“ Wildeve. It is law with all men who see 'ee. They say, 'This well- favoured lady coming--what's her name? How handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman persisted, saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And she was handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not trained. In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour, but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour. ”

“ Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered her dignity thereby. "Many women are lovelier than Thomasin," she said, "so not much attaches to that."
The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man who notices the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind, if you only had the mind." ”