 wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he,
too, then went on.
 

                                   Chapter XX

                  Perplexity - Grinding the Shears - A Quarrel

»He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire,« Bathsheba
mused.
    Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not
exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a
self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.
    Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, was eventually able to look
calmly at his offer. It was one which many women of her own station in the
neighbourhood, and not a few of higher rank, would have been wild to accept and
proud to publish. In every point of view, ranging from politic to passionate, it
was desirable that she, a lonely girl, should marry and marry this earnest,
well-to-do, and respected man. He was close to her doors: his standing was
sufficient: his qualities were even supererogatory. Had she felt, which she did
not, any wish whatever for the married state in the abstract, she could not
reasonably have rejected him, being a woman who frequently appealed to her
understanding for deliverance from her whims. Boldwood as a means to marriage
was unexceptionable: she esteemed and liked him, yet she did not want him. It
appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without
marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not
possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same
on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting
here. Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm and house was
a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off.
    But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat to her credit, for it would
have affected few. Beyond the mentioned reasons with which she combated her
objections, she had a strong feeling that, having been the one who began the
game, she ought in honesty to accept the consequences. Still the reluctance
remained. She said in the same breath that it would be ungenerous not to marry
Boldwood, and that she couldn't do it to save her life.
    Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An
Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of
the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion. Many of her thoughts
were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few
were irrational assumptions; but,
