The Return of the Native Quotes

Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness agai...

But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had been entirely withholden. (2.3.28)

"I wish he had never seen you." "Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not let him see me again. No, I won't have him!" (1.5.8-9)

His mother's taciturny was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing towards him. These half-silent sitt...

"Let the past be forgotten. Well, God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who turned, smiled, and went...

"I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no further in the business." (1.5.48)

It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true t...

The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from the summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. (1.3.7)

One point was evident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and not in one of languor, or stagnation. (1.6.9)

"Then you wronged me: and upon my life and heart I can hardly bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me!" (1.6.78)

The imagination of the observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing than these new-c...