They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.
 Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). copy citation

Context

“"I've danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit."
He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality.” source

Meaning and analysis

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