The Return of the Native

by Hardy, Thomas; Theroux, Alexander

• ISBN13: 9780375757181
• ISBN10: 037575718X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-13
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

This Second Edition reprints the text of the authoritative 1912 Macmillan Wessex Edition.

Author Biography

<br>Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in a thatched-roof cottage in upper Bockhampton, Dorset, England, a prophetic birthplace that lay in the center of 'Wessex,' the fictional region of southwest England which would serve as the backdrop for his novels. The eldest son of a prosperous builder and stonemason, Hardy was educated at the village school and apprenticed at the age of sixteen to local architect and church restorer John Hicks. In 1862 he went to London to pursue his architectural career; he also began writing at this time. Hardy returned to Dorset in 1867 to become assistant to John Hicks and wrote his first novel, <i>The Poor Man and the Lady,</i> of which only fragments remain. Although George Meredith, who was reader for Chapman & Hall publishers, advised against its publication, he encouraged Hard

Table of Contents

Biographical Note	v
Introduction	xi
Alexander Theroux
Author's Preface	xix
Book First: The Three Women
A Face on Which Time Makes But Little Impression	3	(4)
Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble	7	(6)
The Custom of the Country	13	(20)
The Halt on the Turnpike Road	33	(5)
Perplexity among Honest People	38	(12)
The Figure against the Sky	50	(13)
Queen of Night	63	(7)
Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody	70	(6)
Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy	76	(10)
A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion	86	(9)
The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman	95	(12)
Book Second: The Arrival
Tidings of the Comer	107	(5)
I The People at Blooms-End Make Ready	112	(5)
How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream	117	(5)
Eustacia Is Led On to an Adventure	122	(10)
Through the Moonlight	132	(7)
The Two Stand Face to Face	139	(11)
A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness	150	(9)
Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart	159	(12)
Book Third: The Fascination
`My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is'	171	(5)
The New Course Causes Disappointment	176	(9)
The First Act in a Timeworn Drama	185	(14)
An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness	199	(8)
Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues	207	(7)
Yeobright Goes, and the Breach is Complete	214	(7)
The Morning and the Evening of a Day	221	(13)
A New Force Disturbs the Current	234	(11)
Book Fourth: The Closed Door
The Rencounter by the Pool	245	(7)
He Is Set Upon by Adversities; but He Sings a Song	252	(10)
She Goes Out to Battle against Depression	262	(12)
Rough Coercion Is Employed	274	(7)
The Journey across the Heath	281	(5)
A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian	286	(10)
The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends	296	(8)
Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil	304	(11)
Book Fifth: The Discovery
`Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery'	315	(8)
A Lurid Light Breaks In upon a Darkened Understanding	323	(10)
Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning	333	(8)
The Ministrations of a Half-Forgotten One	341	(5)
An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated	346	(7)
Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter	353	(7)
The Night of the Sixth of November	360	(8)
Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers	368	(10)
Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together	378	(13)
Book Sixth: Aftercourses
The Inevitable Movement Onward	391	(9)
Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road	400	(4)
The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin	404	(5)
Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation	409	(10)
Commentary	419	(6)
Reading Group Guide	425

Excerpts

A SATURDAY afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking dread.

In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn: then, and only then, did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced half-way.

The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis—the final overthrow.

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Excerpted from The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
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