excepts from the classic novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles

"a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely."   -- referring to the mother in the story;  this was a funny line to me, as I can relate.


"he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent Power."


"Many besides Angel (a man, central character to the book) have learnt that the magnitude of their lives is not as to their external displacement but as to their subjective experiences."  


-- excepts from the classic novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy


I actually didn't like this book.  It is woefully unhappy book & its heroine (she is so to me, although may not be to other readers) suffers only undeserved defeat, misery, & finally death at the end of a rope (I think or maybe it was the axe).  The author's point is the cruel double standard of the Victorian era.

I did prefer it to Portrait of  a Lady by Henry James, which I actually threw out my back door after reading, but perhaps that says more about me than about the novel.

Be Strong, a poem by Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Be strong!


We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle - face it; 'tis God's gift.


Be strong!


Say not, "The days are evil.   Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce - oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.


Be strong!  


It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not - fight on!  To-morrow comes the song.


--  Maltbie Davenport Babcock, 1858-1901