From: The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy, 1886)

And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he had occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was nothing to hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights achieving higher things than his soul in its half-formed state had been able to accomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum---which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu [at an equal pace] with the departure of zest for doing---stood in the way of all that. He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that had become a mere painted scene to him.