"If a man speaks so of _cattle_ how must he feel towards his human brothers and sisters! How strong must be in him that profoundest of poetic passions, the '_carent quia vate sacro_' feeling! For, no doubt, sometimes in these quiet country places a heart of such gold as Tess's throbs away in complete obscurity its allotted number of pulses. Our temper has altered from the time when this emotion was dismissed with a 'Let not ambition mock their useful toil,' etc., and Hardy has fully realised the appalling paths of such tragedies in humble life. 'This time,' he seems to have said, 'this time no mincing and no hedging. Let the disdainful smilers and those others who shift all responsibilities on to Providence look to themselves.' "There are passages of infinite pathos in this story: the 'too-late' meeting of Tess with Angel Clare in the sea-side lodging, and the terrific scene immediately after, when Angel is gone and she is left to sob out her distraction; where Tess says to Angel, 'Why didn't you stay and love me when I was sixteen with my little sisters and brothers?':--the long letter she writes about a year after Angel has left her, and where she practises the ballads that he had liked best, while working in the field, 'the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the thought that, perhaps, he would not after all come to hear her, and the silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of the aching heart of the singer.' And, earlier, the baptising by Tess of her own infant, and--perhaps lying nearest of all to the fountain of tears--those glimpses of her early innocence. 'Tess's pride would not allow her to turn her head again to learn what her father's meaning was, if he had any, and thus she moved on with the whole body to the enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green' ... when one knows against what fate the poor girl is going! But is it not all just a little too cruel? To represent such adorable goodness, and sweetness, and faithfulness as being rewarded with the actual _gibbet_--is not this a little hard, even on Providence? The unsparingly tragic ending is not the only thing, nor even the main thing that distinguishes this from other stories dealing with the same sort of subject.