THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED
IDIOSYNCRASY and vicissitude had combined tostamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being.He was a man to whom memories were an in-cumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simplyfeeling, considering, and caring for what was before hiseyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His out-look upon time was as a transient flash of the eye nowand then: that projection of consciousness into daysgone by and to come, which makes the past a synonymfor the pathetic and the future a word for circum-spection, was foreign to Troy. With him the pastwas yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the dayafter.On this account he might, in certain lights, havebeen regarded as one of the most fortunate of hisorder. For it may be argued with great plausibilitythat reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease,and that expectation in its only comfortable form -- thatof absolute faith -- is practically an impossibility; whilstin the form of hope and the secondary compounds,patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constantfluctuation between pleasure and pain.Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of thepractice of expectation, was never disappointed. Toset against this negative gain there may have beensome positive losses from a certain narrowing of thehigher tastes and sensations which it entailed. Butlimitation of the capacity is never recognized as a lossby the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral oraesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, sincethose who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mindit soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anythingto have been always without it, and what Troy hadnever enjoyed he did not miss; but, being fullyconscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed,his capacity, though really less, seemed greater thantheirs.He was moderately truthful towards men, but towomen lied like a Cretan -- a system of ethics above allothers calculated to win popularity at the first flush ofadmission into lively society; and the possibility of thefavour gained being transitory had reference only tothe future.He never passed the line which divides the sprucevices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals hadhardly been applauded, disapproval of them had fre-quently been tempered with a smile. This treatmenthad led to his becoming a sort of regrater of othermen's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as aCorinthian, rather than to the moral profit of hishearers.His reason and his propensities had seldom anyreciprocating influence, having separated by mutualconsent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that,while his intentions were as honourable as could bewished, any particular deed formed a dark backgroundwhich threw them into fine relief. The sergeant'svicious phases being the offspring of impulse, andhis virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latterhad a modest tendency to be oftener heard of thanseen.Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less ofa locomotive than a vegetative nature; and, never beingbased upon any original choice of foundation or direc-tion, they were exercised on whatever object chancemight place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimesreached the brilliant in speech because that -wasspontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action,from inability to guide incipient effort. He had aquick comprehension and considerable force of char-acter; but, being without the power to combine them,the comprehension became engaged with trivialitieswhilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the forcewasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding thecomprehension.He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middleclass -- exceptionally well educated for a common soldier.He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in thisway be one thing and seem another: for instance, hecould speak of love and think of dinner; call on theintend to owe.The wondrous power of flattery in passados at womanis a perception so universal as to be remarked upon bymany people almost as automatically as they repeat aproverb, or say that they are Christians and the like,without thinking much of the enormous corollarieswhich spring from the proposition. Still less is it actedupon for the good of the complemental being alludedto. With the majority such an opinion is shelved withall those trite aphorisms which require some catastropheto bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home.When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness itseems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery mustbe reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit ofmen that few attempt to settle the question by experi-ment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accidenthas never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that amale dissembler who by deluging her with untenablefictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powersreaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taughtto many by unsought and wringing occurrences. Andsome profess to have attained to the same knowledgeby experiment as aforesaid, and jauntily continue theirindulgence in such experiments with terrible effect.Sergeant Troy was one.He had been known to observe casually that indealing with womankind the only alternative to flatterywas cursing and swearing. There was no third method.Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man. he wouldsay.This philosopher's public appearance in Weatherburypromptly followed his arrival there. A week or twoafter the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless reliefof spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approachedher hayfields and looked over the hedge towards thehaymakers. They consisted in about equal proportionsof gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being themen, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnetscovered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upontheir shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowingin a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune tothe strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attemptto keep time with his. In the first mead they werealready loading hay, the women raking it into cocksand windrows, and the men tossing it upon thewaggon.From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spotemerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with therest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come hay-making for pleasure; and nobody could deny that hewas doing the mistress of the farm real knight-serviceby this voluntary contribution of his labour at a busytime.As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her,and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and pickingup his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathshebablushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjustedher eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of herpath.
CHAPTER XXVI