"I've seen a good many women in my time...but I've never seen a woman so beautiful as you. Take it or leave it--be offended or like it--I don't care." -- Thomas Hardy

I'm reading Far from the Maddening Crowd. I can't decide whether I am Gabriel Oak, Farmer Boldwood, or Sergeant Troy--I think I have a bit of all of them in me. Do you do that: choose a character in a story through whom to experience it? Certainly, I have this in common with the three of them: that all three parts of me are in love with the same extraordinary woman.