I don’t want to see landscapes, i.e. scenic paintings of them, because I don’t want to see the original realities – as optical effects that is. I wan… - Thomas Hardy

Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her? If not, of course - '
'I don't think she would.'
'Are you sure?'
'I am sure she wouldn't.'
He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.
'I am sure she would!' he retorted passionaltely. 'I know her better than you do.'
'That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her.

Tess was no insignificant creature to toy with and dismiss; but a woman living her precious life — a life which, to herself who endured or enjoyed it, possessed as great a dimension as the life of the mightiest to himself.

Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.