Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess? - Thomas Hardy

She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its shadow: it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the western glow.

The beggarly question of parentage — what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.

The doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst us — boys of a sort unknown in the last generation — the outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.

Der Arzt sagte, solche Kinder kämen jetzt manchmal vor – Kinder, wie sie die vorige Generation nicht gekannt habe -, das Ergebnis neuer Anschauungen vom Leben. Es ist, als sähen diese Kinder alle seine Schrecknisse, ehe sie alt genug sind, die nötige Widerstandskraft dagegen aufzubringen. Er sagt, es wäre der Anfang des kommenden allgemeinen Wunsches, nicht zu leben.