Page 56 (1/1)

Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the strangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new There was no middle distance in her perspective--romantic recollections of sunny afternoons on an esplanade, with ilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon Every bizarre effect that could result frorand sole of huined all the nity come fro from Phaeacia's isle?--or fro had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws As opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely Isolation on a heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible It would have been as easy for the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her A narrow life in Budht have completely demeaned her

The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to look as if you had lost thee she could suggest mansions she had never seen Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of them, the open hills Like the summer condition of the place around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous solitude"--apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full

To be loved to reat desire Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days And she see for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover

She could show a ainst huainst certain creatures of her h whose interference she di youth--that any love she lass She thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion froh want of it she had sung without beingHer loneliness deepened her desire On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at fa hers to be found?