Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an English novelist and
poet. In the novel «Two On A Tower» Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful Swithin St Cleeve. He is younger than she and stands below the social ladder. The tower in question is a monument
to the astronomical observatory where together the lovers ‘sweep
the heavens’. Science and romance are destined to collide, however,
as work, ambition and the pressures of the outside world intrude upon the pair. In what Sally Shuttleworth calls ‘a drama of oppositions and confl icts’, Hardy’s story sets male desire against
female constancy.