Close? ah, he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man’s dumbness is wonderful to listen to.” “There’s so much sense in it. Every moment of i… - Thomas Hardy

On the morning appointed for her departure Tess awoke before dawn — at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute save for one prophetic bird, who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence, as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.

My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.

there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would had disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there