Two on a Tower
by Thomas Hardy
First published 1882 · 317 pages · about 5 hours to read
Also as Kindle · AudiobookRead free on Project Gutenberg · Find in a library
About this book
"Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. The tower in question is a monument converted into an astronomical observatory where together the lovers 'sweep the heavens'." "Science and romance are destined to collide, however, as work, ambition and the pressures of the outside world intrude upon the pair. In what Sally Shuttleworth calls 'a drama of oppositions and conflicts', Hardy's story sets male desire against female constancy, and 'describes an arc across the horizon of late nineteenth-century social and cultural concerns: sexuality, class, history, science and religion'."--Jacket.
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Quotes
“The trees were all of one size and age, so that their tips assumed the precise curve of the hill they grew upon.”
Chapter I “But given two people living in one parish, who long from the depths of their hearts to be in each other's company, what resolves of modesty, policy, pride, or apprehension will keep them for any length of time apart?”
Chapter XIV 'O woman,' might a prophet have said to her, 'great is thy faith if thou believest a junior lover's love will last five years!'
Chapter XLI “How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine's feelings, when he could readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger and larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller quantity remained.”
Chapter VII “He tried to give her yet another idea of the size of the universe; never was there a more ardent endeavour to bring down the immeasurable to human comprehension!”
Chapter IV
Passages chosen with AI from the book's public-domain text on Project Gutenberg.
More by Thomas Hardy
- The Well-belovedThe Well-beloved1897
- Jude the ObscureJude the Obscure1895
- Life's Little IroniesLife's Little Ironies1894
- Tess of the d'UrbervillesTess of the d'Urbervilles1891
- A Group of Noble DamesA Group of Noble Dames1891
- Wessex TalesWessex Tales1888