Quotes from work
Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of Wessex novels. Whilst Hardy originally thought of simply calling it The Mellstock Quire, he settled on a title taken from a song in Shakespeare's As You Like It .

“To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), ch. 1

“There's a friendly tie of some sort between music and eating.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree

“If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Source: Under the Greenwood Tree

“Good, but not religious-good.”

Thomas Hardy Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), ch. 2