Thomas Hardy, English writer, passed away on a day like today in 1928. An internationally renowned poet and novelist, he signed titles such as Far from the madding crowd, perhaps the best known. To remember to remember or discover it, this is a selection fragments, phrases and poems of his work.
Thomas Hardy
In addition to English, he knew Latin, French, and even a little German. He started with poetry, but is best known for his prose work. the first novel what he wrote was The poor man and the lady that remained unpublished because it was rejected by several publishers. Later he did publish Desperate remedies.
But the two works that brought him the most success were under the forest tree (1872) and Far from the madding crowd (1874). However, jude the dark (1895) was widely criticized and branded as immoral for the issues he dealt with such as religion, morality and sex. That affected her a lot and she wanted to focus on the poetry.
married twice. The first with Emma Lavinia Gifford, her great love, and the second with Florence Emily Dugdale, who had been her secretary. Emma's death marked him and he told her love story in What remains of an old flame. He died at the age of 88 and his body rests in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner, but his heart rests with that of his first wife.
thomas hardy Fragments, phrases and poems
Far from the madding crowd
- Bathsheba had reached that point where people stop caring what others might think.
- And at last the eighth day arrived. The cow had stopped giving milk for the rest of the year, and Bathsheba Everdene would not climb the hill again. Gabriel had reached a point in his existence that he could never have imagined shortly before. He enjoyed saying "Bathsheba" in private, instead of whistling; and he began to like black hair more, despite the fact that since he was a child he had sworn faithful to brown hair, distancing himself from others until it occupied an insignificant space in his eyes. Love is a possible strength that is born from a real weakness.
- It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language created mainly by men to express his.
- He had reached that moment in his life when "young" ceased to be the qualifier for "man" when speaking of one. He was in the prime of his masculine development, since his intellect and his emotions were clearly differentiated: he had passed the age in which the influence of youth indiscriminately mixes both, producing an impulsive character, but he had not yet reached that other. in which they reconcile to produce an apprehensive character, due to the influence of the wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight years old and single.
Jude the dark
It was a windy night, full of whispers, moonless. In order to get her bearings, she stopped under a lamppost and opened a map she had brought with her. The wind bent it and he tossed it, but he could see enough to know which direction he had to take to get to the heart of the city.
After many turns, he came to the first medieval-style building. It was a college, as could be seen from its entrance. He entered, walked around the patio and sniffed in the dark corners where no light reached. Very close to this school there was another; and a little further, another; he was beginning to feel enveloped by the breath and spirit of the venerable city. Every time he came across some detail that was out of tune with this intellectual atmosphere, he let his gaze slide over it as if he hadn't seen it.
He began to ring a bell and stopped to listen to it, until he heard a hundred and one chimes. He thought that he had made a mistake in the count: surely there had been a hundred.
Chosen phrases
- Pessimism is a safe game. So you can never lose, you can only win. It is the only point of view from which you will never be disappointed.
- If you cannot read with pleasure you cannot read with benefit.
- Poetry is emotion set in motion. The emotion must come from its own nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
- It is wonderful to listen to the silence of man.
- Happiness does not depend on what one does not have, but on the good use that one makes of what one has.
- The poet have their own morality and custom is not an argument for them.
- Don't do an immoral thing for moral reasons!
- Time changes everything, except something in us that is always surprised by change.
- There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is seeing something that is not.
A poem
a failed date
and time continued its course. Sad,
not so much for missing your presence
as if to understand that you were missing
the compassion that by condescension
prevails over apathy, I was grieved
that when giving the desired hour in which you should have
arrive you did not appear
you didn't want me
Loyalty only exists in love
I knew it and I know it, it was never in my hands
yours. Although it might have been beautiful
add to the sum of human acts
another in which you, woman, one lucky day
you came to give comfort to a lonely and sad man;
even though you didn't love me