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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: itself bisected by the high-way, as the head of thick hair is
bisected by the white line of its parting. The spot is lonely.
The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a
degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a
tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools.
The contrast of what is with what might be probably accounts for
this. To step, for instance, at the place under notice, from the
hedge of the plantation into the adjoining pale thoroughfare, and
pause amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange by the act
of a single stride the simple absence of human companionship for
an incubus of the forlorn.
The Woodlanders |
