
conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have acquired a homely zest for
doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper which cannot be objected to in the
abstract, for it denotes a mind that, though disappointed, forswears compromise.
But, if congenial to philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth.
In a world where doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts and
hands, the same peril attends the condition.
    And so we see our Eustacia - for at times she was not altogether unlovable -
arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that nothing is worth while,
and filling up the spare hours of her existence by idealizing Wildeve for want
of a better object. This was the sole reason of his ascendency: she knew it
herself. At moments her pride rebelled against her passion for him, and she even
had longed to be free. But there was only one circumstance which could dislodge
him, and that was the advent of a greater man.
    For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took slow
walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather's telescope and her
grandmother's hour-glass - the latter because of a peculiar pleasure she derived
from watching a material representation of time's gradual glide away. She seldom
schemed, but when she did scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive
strategy of a general than the small arts called womanish, though she could
utter oracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct. In
heaven she will probably sit between the Héloïses and the Cleopatras.
 

              Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody

                                      VIII

As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped the money
tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his courage, and began
to run. There was really little danger in allowing a child to go home alone on
this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to the boy's house was not more than
three-eighths of a mile, his father's cottage, and one other a few yards further
on, forming part of the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only
remaining house was that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away
from the small cottages, and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly
populated slopes.
    He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a sailor-boy
and a fair one,
