“--the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man...”

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.