113. JUDE the OBSCURE

Thomas Hardy 1896

The author wrote this strikingly relevant passage in 1896 about Jude, the Obscure: "a paltry victim of the spirit of mental and social restlessness that makes so many unhappy in these days." A tragic statement that haunts some of us today. In this book, Jude is a mason, an obscure nobody yearning to make a mark as a scholar, and along the way, these hopes and dreams crumble and fall apart. In this complicated novel, Jude's changing aspirations, impulsive decisions, the influence of society, religion, alcohol, and his unusual relationships with two women, Arabella and his cousin Sue take him to a different and dramatic path. Another magnificent book from Hardy!!

'The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher's effects.'(opening lines)

'And so standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.'(61)

'And lastly a gentle-voiced prelate spoke, during whose meek, familiar rhyme, endeared to him from earliest childhood, Jude fell asleep:

Teach me to live, that I may dread

The grave as little as my bed.

Teach me to die...'(88)

'For the present, he said to himself, the one thing necessary was to get ready by accumulating money and knowledge, and await whatever chances were afforded to such an one of becoming a son of the University. "For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence; but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." His desire absorbed him, and left no part of him to weigh its practicability.'(92)

'Perhaps to know her would be to cure himself of this unexpected and unauthorized passion. A voice whispered that, though he desired to know her, he did not desire to be cured.'(104)

'They stood possessed by the same thought, ugly enough, even as an assumption: that a union between them, had such been possible, would have meant a terrible intensification of unfitness-- two bitters in one dish.'(177)

'Are there many couples, do you think, where one dislikes the other for no definite fault?'(221)

'But sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.'(254)

'People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.'(272)

'The beggarly question of parentage-- what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.'(288)

"I can't bear that they, and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live their own way! It is really these opinions that make the best intentioned people reckless, and actually become immoral!"(318)

"We must sail under sealed orders, that nobody may trace us... We mustn't go to Alfredston, or to Melchester, or to Shaston, or to Christminster. Apart from those we may go anywhere."(324)

"It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man-- that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times-- whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and reshape his course accordingly. I tried to do the later, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays-- I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended not better that I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy!'"(343)

'Then another silence, till she was seized with another uncontrollable fit of grief. "There is something external to us which says, 'You shan't! First it said, 'You shan't learn!' Then it said, 'You shan't labour!' Now it says, 'You shan't love!"(355)

a Bantam Book 1981 edition

431 pages

Book owned