With these natures, corporal presence is something less appealing than corporal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real.
对这样的人而言,真实的相伴反而不如缺席动人;缺席会造出一个理想的身影,恰好略去了真人的缺点。
— Thomas Hardy · Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) · Chapter XXXVI —