...Reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease, and expectation in its only comfortable form — that of absolute faith — is practically an imposs… - Thomas Hardy

...reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease...

The real sin ma'am, in my mind lies in thinking of ever wedding with a man you don't love honest and true.

but she remained more or less and ideal character, about whose form he began to weave curious and fantastic day-dreams.

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. And that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. And that nobody is wished to see my dead body. And that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. And that no flours be planted on my grave. And that no man remember me.