Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a tempo… - Thomas Hardy

Well, these sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in.

On a Fine Morning”
in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)

WHENCE comes Solace? — Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life’s conditions,
Nor from heeding Time’s monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.

This do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its iris-hued embowment;
But as nothing other than
Part of a benignant plan;
Proof that earth was made for man.

All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is no laughable thing under the sun.