Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all! - Thomas Hardy

Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means more effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.

love, life and everything human seemed small and trifling in such close juxtaposition with an infuriated universe'. (p.309)

That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times.