"The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the
evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as
rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. . . . The place became full
of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank brooding to
sleep, the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night
its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus
unmoved during so many centuries, through the crises of so many
things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis--the
final overthrow. . . . Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon
Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive without
showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity."