That cold accretion called the world, so terrible in the mass, is so non formidable, even pitiable, in its units.

Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.

A blaze of love and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should last long years.

Do you know that I have undergone three quarters of this labour entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?

Nobody had beheld the gravitation of the two into one

Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.

Some women's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's license to receive it.