excerpt of Alan reading "Return of the Native"
Transcript:
* "……shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily. And then her rich, romantic lips parted under that homely impulse – a yawn. She was immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.
The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright’s diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though not as yet of the kind she had anticipated, it had appreciably influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover was no longer to her an exciting man, whom many women strove for and herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity."