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Despite his heterodoxy, faults, and weaknesses, Clare was a nificant creature to toy with and

dis her precious life--a life which, to

herself who endured or enjoyed it, possessed as great a dihtiest to himself Upon her sensations

the whole world depended to Tess; through her existence all her

fellow-creatures existed, to her The universe itself only ca for Tess on the particular day in the particular year in which

she was born This consciousness upon which he had intruded was the single

opportunity of existence ever vouchsafed to Tess by an unsympathetic

First Cause--her all; her every and only chance How then should he

look upon her as of less consequence than hiroeary of; and not deal in the greatest seriousness

with the affection which he knew that he had awakened in her--so

fervid and so impressionable as she was under her reserve--in order

that it onize and wreck her?

To encounter her daily in the accusto in such close relations, to meet meant to

fall into endear arrived at no conclusion as to the issue of such a tendency,

he decided to hold aloof for the present froed As yet the harm done was small