And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly be… - Thomas Hardy

But nobody did come, because nobody does: and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out if the world.

"Under the trees several pheasants lay about, their plumage dabbled with blood... some feebly twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky... all of them writhing in agony, except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the night...

Tess guessed at once the meaning... The birds had been driven down into this corner by some shooting-party; and while those that had dropped dead under the shot had been searched for and carried off, many badly wounded birds had escaped and hidden themselves away, or risen among the thick boughs, where they maintained their position till they grew weaker with loss of blood, when they had fallen one by one...

"Poor darlings — to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours... And not a twinge of bodily pain about me! I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and I have two hands to feed and clothe me." She was ashamed of herself for the gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no foundation in Nature."

I want to question my belief, so that what is left after I have questioned it, will be even stronger.