The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her
pride rebelled against her passion for him, and she even
had longed to be free. But there was only one circumstance
which could dislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater man.
For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits,
and took slow walks to recover them, in which she carried
her grandfather's telescope and her grandmother's
hourglass--the latter because of a peculiar pleasure she
derived from watching a material representation of time's
gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she
did scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive
 Return of the Native |