Jude the Obscure: A Norton Critical Edition (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)

by Thomas Hardy

Under the hedge which divided the field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest; and in that ancient corn-field many a man had made love-promises to a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place, possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and in the other that of a granary good to feed in.

I am so glad we have met at last. We needn’t quarrel because our parents did, need we?’

to the schoolmaster and recluse