“It was still early, and the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet.”

Victorian English novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy is best known for his novels exploring rural life and human suffering, particularly *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* and *Jude the Obscure*. His later work shifted toward poetry, where he grappled with themes of mortality and the passage of time.