Egdon Heath

Thomas Hardy was a cat lover! He had at least nine and included Comfy, Kitsey, Kiddleywinkempoops (aka Trot), Cobby and Snowdove. The latter inspired his moving poem, Last Words to a Dumb Friend.❤️

https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/last-words-to-a-dumb-friend-99335202596

The setup: George Somerset, a newly trained architect, fortuitously comes to Stancy Castle whose owner, Miss Paula Power, a young railway magnate heiress, has plans to renovate it. Mr. Somerset becomes interested both in the renovation and Miss Power as a lover. Meanwhile there are forces conspiring against Somerset for both interests.

Review:

The Laodicean (1881). I had never heard of this word. It refers to a person who is lukewarm, indifferent, or unenthusiastic, particularly in matters of religion or politics. The story basically describes a love triangle between two men and a woman that is complicated by ulterior motives and subterfuge. The novel also touches on an indifference to religious mores, the societal shift in power from the waning aristocracy to newly monied industry, and how one’s loyalty to family can come into conflict with the interests of a friend or lover. I had a difficult time sympathizing with the female protagonist who was rather prideful and ineffectual in sorting out her affairs. I found the story slow paced until nearly the end, repetitive (especially the prolonged wooing), and lacking the usual attributes of a Thomas Hardy novel. It was okay, but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone interested in reading TH for the first time. My rating is 2.5/5.

The Well-Beloved by Thomas Hardy. The following doesn’t divulge plot details but does contain my impressions of the main protagonist, Joceyln Pierston, so please skip if you don’t want any foretelling.

Two on a Tower (1881) by Thomas Hardy. It is classified as one of the author’s “Romances and Fantasies” along with A Pair of Blue Eyes and The Well Beloved. Lady Viviette Constantine lives a privileged but lonely life at Welland House. She discovers Swithin St. Cleve atop an abandoned stone tower (Rings-Hill Speer) on her property where he has been single-mindedly pursuing his astronomical investigations. He is 9 years her junior and poor. The circumstances of their meeting and involvement may sound fantastical, but Hardy makes it all seem believable. I don’t often encounter science in literary fiction so I quite enjoyed Swithin’s musings on astronomy. I especially admired the passages that so aptly described the “ghastly” immensity of the universe, and by inference, our insignificance. There is mention that the tower is built on a “fir-shrouded hill-top turned out to be an old Roman camp, — if it were not an old British castle, or an old Saxon field of Witenagemote…”, perhaps to remind us of our impermanence. It is a compelling story of romance tempered by differences of class, gender, age, and experience. It also illustrates the limited options for women without means and society’s exacting standards of propriety. As one would expect from TH, there are sensitive character portrayals, beautiful narrative passages, and the banter of rustic villagers. I will leave their journey for you to discover, but it is marked by numerous dramatic events, and it is difficult to put down. There is so much to savor in this novel, and I think it deserves much greater recognition.

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Excerpts:

A man’s a fool til he’s forty. p17

Page 29 and pp58-59: the immensity of the universe and by contrast our minuscule presence.

Hardy’s description of a day in October for your reading pleasure: “A more beautiful October morning than that of the next day never beamed upon Welland Groves. The yearly dissolution of leafage was setting in apace. The foliage of the park trees rapidly resolved itself into the multitude of complexions, which mark the subtle grades of decay, reflecting wet lights of such innumerable hues that it was a wonder to think their beauties only a repetition of scenes that had been exhibited there on scores of previous Octobers, and have been allowed to pass away without a single dirge from the imperturbable beings who walked among them. Far in the shadows, semi-opaque screens of blue haze made mysteries of the commonest, gravel pit, dingle, or recess.”

P145. Nothing is ominous in serene philosophy, he said…Things are either causes, or they are not causes.

Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire (1872) by Thomas Hardy.

As a follow up, I’m happy to report that I finished Under the Greenwood Tree and thoroughly enjoyed it. While it lacks the complexity and gravitas of Hardy’s more famous novels, I loved this lighter example of his work, the way he depicts the beauty of the mundane for its own sake, the humor, and good and kind hearted side of human nature among the rustic villagers of Mellstock. Their lives are not without event. The quire struggles to hold onto a beloved and ancient tradition. There’s also the disruptive arrival of an unmarried school mistress, Miss Fancy Day, who is beautiful but has her faults. And through the kind forbearance of his friends, poor Thomas Leaf is granted a place in the quire and even encouraged to relate an anecdote.❤️

Specific plot lines are discussed below:

Early on we have the author’s lovely tribute to the Christmas traditions and scenes of rustic English villagers of yore. I loved the account of the motley troupe of carolers and musicians making their tuneful rounds on Christmas Eve, their cozy conspiracy, the humorous observations, and hilarious episodes. Here’s a lovely scene from their night of caroling for your enjoyment:

“They now crossed the Mellstock bridge, and went along an embowered path beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the hot mead and bread and cheese as they were approaching the churchyard. This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they entered the church and ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round the walls on benches and whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of conversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time.”

After Christmas we see the epochal change of the Mellstock church music from the traditional quire to an organist despite the quire’s valiant efforts to sway the new vicar. The other major storyline involves Miss Fancy Day, the new school teacher and church organist, and her suitors. Her coquettish nature and impulsivity are rather maddening to men with sincere and serious intentions.

Memorable parts:

p17 The prejudice against clarinets 😂

p21 Farmer Shiner takes exception to caroling.🤣

p50 The Quire’s fond remembrance of the late vicar.🤣

p127-8 two suitors meet, and Vicar Maybold realizes Fancy has already been engaged. 🤣

p142 Fancy’s etiquette rules at the wedding feast.😂

“There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound, whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness.” -A Pair of Blue Eyes

I loved this book dearly. Overcombe and its colorful inhabitants, the thrilling appearance of the British soldiers’ encampment on the downs, and the warm summer days are so vividly and lovingly rendered. Unlike most of my experience of the author’s works, there is an abundance of playfulness and humor here that frequently made me smile and laugh. Hardy’s sympathetic treatment of the rustic characters and their world also imparts a strong sense of love for Britain and her people. The innocence, selflessness, and scrupulous sense of propriety of our protagonists make them very endearing (and also quite frustrating at times 😁). I will always treasure this book.

Excerpts:

“It was just this time of year when cherries are ripe, and hang in clusters under the dark leaves. While the troopers loiter on their horses, and chatted to the miller across the stream, he gathered bunches of the fruit, and held them up over the garden hedge for the acceptance of anybody who would have them: whereupon the soldiers rode into the water to where it had washed holes in the garden bank, and, reigning their horses there, caught the cherries in their forage-caps, or received bunches of them on the ends of their switches, with a dignified laugh that became martial men when stooping to slightly boyish amusement. It was a cheerful, careless, unpremeditated half hour, which returned like the scent of a flower to the memories of some of those who enjoyed it, even at a distance of many years after, when they lay wounded and weak in foreign lands.” p17

Any woman who has ever tried will know without explanation what an unpalatable task it is to dismiss, even when she does not love him, a man who has all the natural and moral qualities she would desire, but only fails in the social. Would be lovers are not so numerous, even with the best of women, that the sacrifice of one can be felt as other than a good thing wasted, in a world where there are few good things. p83

A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) by Thomas Hardy. The following doesn’t share plot details but gives some idea of its tone and themes.

This is an earlier work, but I think it’s comparable in quality snd emotional impact to Hardy’s better known novels. I felt two diametrically opposing forces while reading: to keep reading to learn the fates of the characters and at times wanting to stop because I could sense the inauspicious direction of the story. I was struck by Elfride’s cruelty towards Stephen Smith. It’s like kind of cowardice and callousness in love that can destroy the life of an unsuspecting lover, especially a young person without perspective. I wondered if Hardy experienced this kind of trauma himself after reading the following passage:

“There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound, whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness.”

I also appreciated Hardy’s illustration of how one can draw a conclusion that seems incontrovertible, but later find that it is actually flawed by one’s limited perspective, and that sometimes tragedy is more the result of circumstance than intent. Graham Greene once said, “We’d forgive most things if we knew the facts.” I will long remember this novel and wish I had read it earlier.

Excerpts and quotes:

The table was prettily decked with winter flowers and leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by chops, chicken, pie, &c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of the dish with a cheerful aspect of abundance. At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea service, of old-fashioned, Worcester porcelain, and behind this arose the slight form of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the movement of pouring out tea, and to have a weighty and concerned look in matters of marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. p14